Microsoft Security Essentials - disadvantages?

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Jerec

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MSE's been getting a lot of praise for being lightweight and effective while being free. It can't be perfect, but I haven't been able to find very much to convince someone to opt for a paid option over MSE. All I've found is MSE doesn't seem to have scheduled scans. Also saw one person say it's not as good with unknown malware, but that's one statement and I've found other statements that disagree.

So does anyone know what MSE might be missing?
 
Jerec said:
All I've found is MSE doesn't seem to have scheduled scans.
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Haven't really tested it extensively, but Schedule scan is the first thing that comes up on the Settings page. Defaults to a quick scan at 2:00AM on Sundays.
 
I dunno why someone would say it's not good with unknown malware....as it's done VERY well in 2x recent tests by AV-Comparatives.org...first test was for malware cleaning of recent samples, and the second test was a retrospective test with outdated definitions..basically relying on heuristics. And it did well...very well.

Disadvantages? I supposed the interface and control panel is too dumbed down for some people, it's minimal in logging, but..don't forget, it's aimed at the average home user for a target audience.

Another disadvantage..it's not licensed for use in businesses, it's only for home use. But this is also true for the other common freebies...AVG, Avast, AntiVir, etc.
 
Ack, I think I meant user scheduled scans. I'm aware of the default automated schedule. But maybe the user-scheduled scans are in place too. I admit I don't have much actual experience with MSE yet.
 
Only thing I have found that people don't like is that you can not schedule when it updates the defs.
 
Jerec said:
Ack, I think I meant user scheduled scans. I'm aware of the default automated schedule. But maybe the user-scheduled scans are in place too. I admit I don't have much actual experience with MSE yet.
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I don't understand. Are you asking can a user just trigger a scan at any time? If so, the answer is yes. There is a "Scan now" button on the first screen that let's you do the quick, full, and custom scans. You can also change the schedule so that you can do daily scans (as opposed to the default quick scan every Sunday at 2:00 AM) and you can tweak the times.
 
unwantedSN said:
Only thing I have found that people don't like is that you can not schedule when it updates the defs.
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There is a checkbox on the screen where you setup the scan schedule to update the definitions before it does the scan.
 
unwantedSN said:
Only thing I have found that people don't like is that you can not schedule when it updates the defs.
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Yes, it updates with Windows Update, and you can schedule when Windows Update does it's update via Control Panel.

As far as how good MSE is...
http://www.av-comparatives.org/comparativesreviews/main-tests
See AV-Comparatives latest Nov 2009 review of Pro-active detection.

The best, is Avira, another free AV client, however it was found any false positives.

MSE beat out the the mainstream paid apps McAffee and Norton for example.

AV-Comparatives group would say that any on their list are acceptable. They weed out the crappiest clients and don't even both reporting on full evaluations of them.
 
Can this be rolled out with other av software present?

Can it be rolled out into a terminal server?
 
sc0tty8 said:
Can this be rolled out with other av software present?

Can it be rolled out into a terminal server?
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It's not good to run 2x antivirus programs at the same time. Even if you disable real time protection on one of them and just use it for manual scanning, depending on many variables..you can get conflicts. I have a bench machine that I use for scanning clients infested hard drives..and had NOD32 v4 plus MSE plus a ton of other malware scanning tools...ran fine for a few weeks with MSE real time disabled, then one week it ran glitchy. Went into task manager..an Eset process was banging the graph at 100% CPU ute. Reboot..nada, uninstalled MSE...reboot, ran great.

It's not certified to run on server, only XP/Vista/7. Would probably fail the install on Server. If it's a home test rig...suppose you could always try it.
 
Haven't had any issues running avira and MSE together for months. Realtime protection on for both of em.
 
By user-scheduled, I mean change the scheduled time for it to scan. Not a concern for me at all, but that's all I ever found.

Anyways, I guess no one can figure out what's wrong with MSE yet.
 
Jerec said:
By user-scheduled, I mean change the scheduled time for it to scan. Not a concern for me at all, but that's all I ever found.
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You... can? That's exactly what was posted earlier. First option in settings. Can change frequency and times of scans.
 
Disadvantage: Lack of "Wake from sleep on scheduled scan" option within the program. While it's easy to enable this with the windows task scheduler, most computer novices (this programs intended audience) wont know this.

Disadvantage: Symantec stock holders. (Does not apply to people who can't wait to call their puts on that junk)

Disadvantage: Lack of Fodder for Apple Commercials... because I actually enjoy those commercials, A LOT.

Seriously good job MS. I just got a friend's wife's computer today loaded with s**t. used 2 programs, rkill to stop the malware and MSE to clean everything up. Rebooted after 15 hits and everything is green! Took me about 10 minutes of time. 5 minutes to install everything, 5 minutes to check everything 1 hour later after eating dinner.

YeOldeStonecat said:
It's not certified to run on server, only XP/Vista/7. Would probably fail the install on Server. If it's a home test rig...suppose you could always try it.
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Yea, definitely didn't realize this until I tried to install it on my WHS. To bad, though it probably doesn't matter that much.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Another disadvantage..it's not licensed for use in businesses, it's only for home use. But this is also true for the other common freebies...AVG, Avast, AntiVir, etc.
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Yea for business they want you to poney up the money for Forefront Client Security(or the other Forefront's for things like exchange).

Haven't tried the Forefront for clients yet. Any idea YeOld if it runs off the same engine as MSE?
 
swatbat said:
Yea for business they want you to poney up the money for Forefront Client Security(or the other Forefront's for things like exchange).

Haven't tried the Forefront for clients yet. Any idea YeOld if it runs off the same engine as MSE?
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http://blogs.technet.com/forefront/...-essentials-formerly-morro-and-forefront.aspx
MSE has apparently leap-frogged Forefront.

MSE will include new protection technology, as part of the Microsoft anti-malware engine, called “Dynamic Signature Service (DSS)” which delivers real-time threat signature updates to the client when it detects something suspicious, whether code or behavior. As we mentioned previously in April, Forefront Client Security 2.0 will also include DSS when it releases in H1 2010.
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The most annoying thing to me is no Exit or Disable on MSE taskbar icon. It would be very useful to have that at hand for diagnostic or even going to game.

I installed MSE on a Dell laptop with XP and made the computer run like utter crap! It would of been nice for the shortcuts instead to trying to kill the services. Needless to say Avira went back on the laptop.
 
RogueTrip said:
The most annoying thing to me is no Exit or Disable on MSE taskbar icon. It would be very useful to have that at hand for diagnostic or even going to game.

I installed MSE on a Dell laptop with XP and made the computer run like utter crap! It would of been nice for the shortcuts instead to trying to kill the services. Needless to say Avira went back on the laptop.
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You don't have to go in and kill the services, you can bring up the MSE panel from the systray icon, click on the Settings tab, 3rd item down on the left menu is "Real Time Protection"...highlight that, and uncheck the box on the right. Poof..it's disabled.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
You don't have to go in and kill the services, you can bring up the MSE panel from the systray icon, click on the Settings tab, 3rd item down on the left menu is "Real Time Protection"...highlight that, and uncheck the box on the right. Poof..it's disabled.
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True, just more steps, always love the context menu shortcuts to Disable it.

Alternatively I use a batch file to disable.

Just create a file named Stop MSE.bat and save it, now right click and edit. Paste in:
Code: 
net stop "MsMpSvc"
Exit
Save it again. Now right click the batch file and create shortcut. Right Click the shortcut and go to properties and click the advanced button. Check the Run As Administrator button and click ok, then click ok to exit properties. From there I pinned my shortcut to the start menu. A UAC prompt will still pop up, just ok that and Real-Time will Disable.
 
I'd imagine we're at a point now in computer performance that any decent antivirus is small enough, relative to available system resources, to not affect other apps considerably.
 
Jerec said:
I'd imagine we're at a point now in computer performance that any decent antivirus is small enough, relative to available system resources, to not affect other apps considerably.
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Not true!
 
That's a little disconcerting that they're still, more or less, bloating it to "keep up" with the increase in computing resources.
 
CraftyChicken said:
Disadvantage: Lack of "Wake from sleep on scheduled scan" option within the program. While it's easy to enable this with the windows task scheduler, most computer novices (this programs intended audience) wont know this.
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Most computer novices would never look at settings past installing the darn thing. That's why MSE is so great. It's simple... Green=Good.
If it's yellow or red, time to see what's up.

Menelmarar said:
http://blogs.technet.com/forefront/...-essentials-formerly-morro-and-forefront.aspx
MSE has apparently leap-frogged Forefront.
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Just temporarily, it says it's coming to FF in 2010...

Menelmarar said:
Not true!
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Yes it is. Name me any modern system an any halfways decent anti-virus- they're all light on resources and you won't notice it (unless it's actively trying to scan something).
 
Well I havnt gotten a single piece of malware/virii since running security essentials... then again thats either because

1) i dont download crap
2) its not working

cause it hasnt yelled at me either saying "warning this is bad" but again, im an IT guy, we don't download crap (but it does happen sometimes)... now at work i use symantec corporate, thats bugging out a lot but mainly because its finding stuff on my server from laptops i've copied over temporarily, nothing on my pc either.... sooo i dunno it works for me, but then again, im not my mom who will download anything sent
 
Haven't had any issues with running the AVIRA and MSE together since the start of the MSE beta.

It's the same thing as running multiple anit-malware utilities like MBAM, Spybot, Superantispyware, etc. Nothing is 100%, this I know, but trusting one piece of AV software these days, especially if you surf some of the dark corners of the net, is silly.
 
Stanley Pain said:
Haven't had any issues with running the AVIRA and MSE together since the start of the MSE beta.

It's the same thing as running multiple anit-malware utilities like MBAM, Spybot, Superantispyware, etc. Nothing is 100%, this I know, but trusting one piece of AV software these days, especially if you surf some of the dark corners of the net, is silly.
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That's why you run an active package (Avira/MSE/NOD32), and occasionally scan with an on-demand package (MalwareBytes).
 
TechieSooner said:
That's why you run an active package (Avira/MSE/NOD32), and occasionally scan with an on-demand package (MalwareBytes).
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To each their own I guess. As has been mentioned sometimes one finds something the other missed. Between Avira, and MSE I get pretty damn good protection.

Been meaning to check out Comodo on my machine as a standalone product, it seems to have uber paranoia options which I like :D
 
Stanley Pain said:
Haven't had any issues with running the AVIRA and MSE together since the start of the MSE beta.

It's the same thing as running multiple anit-malware utilities like MBAM, Spybot, Superantispyware, etc. Nothing is 100%, this I know, but trusting one piece of AV software these days, especially if you surf some of the dark corners of the net, is silly.
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It's not really the same thing though.
Multiple malware scanners....they're just scanners.
With antivirus programs though, you have the real time file protection. And it's well known, and even stated so by AV vendors support, that running multiple AV engines can cause problems with each others real time scanning engine...they can trip over each others toes, and become ineffective. So the end result...you can be left without any protection :eek: ...even though you think you're double protected.'

I've already seen NOD32 v4 collide with MSE.

And then there's the double performance hit on your system.
 
Stanley Pain said:
To each their own I guess. As has been mentioned sometimes one finds something the other missed. Between Avira, and MSE I get pretty damn good protection.

Been meaning to check out Comodo on my machine as a standalone product, it seems to have uber paranoia options which I like :D
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Again- until they happen to scan the same thing at the same time, then you're looking at possible data corruption or loss while the two AV products attack each other.

You only should be running one active AV engine at a time.
 
TechieSooner said:
Again- until they happen to scan the same thing at the same time, then you're looking at possible data corruption or loss while the two AV products attack each other.

You only should be running one active AV engine at a time.
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Not true, but like I said, to each their own paranoia.

AVIRA and MSE play very well together, as has NOD32 in the past. I can even tell them to scan the same thing at the same time without any issue whatsoever. In any case we've derailed the thread far enough.

I'll leave it at this, for a free product without any nag screens an all MSE does surprisingly well and should be more than enough for most people.
 
Stanley Pain said:
Not true, but like I said, to each their own paranoia.
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It's not true that AV can conflict with each other when someone literally just expressed a first-hand encounter with it?
:rolleyes:

YeOldeStonecat said:
I've already seen NOD32 v4 collide with MSE.
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And nevermind the fact that every AV company on earth recommends you uninstall any prior AV software:
http://kb.eset.com/esetkb/index?page=content&id=SOLN146&actp=LIST_POPULAR
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/engli..._security/2010/manuals/nis_2010_retail_ug.pdf
http://www.free-av.com/documents/products/pdf/en/man_avira_antivir-personal_en.pdf
 
TechieSooner said:
It's not true that AV can conflict with each other when someone literally just expressed a first-hand encounter with it?
:rolleyes:



And nevermind the fact that every AV company on earth recommends you uninstall any prior AV software:
http://kb.eset.com/esetkb/index?page=content&id=SOLN146&actp=LIST_POPULAR
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/engli..._security/2010/manuals/nis_2010_retail_ug.pdf
http://www.free-av.com/documents/products/pdf/en/man_avira_antivir-personal_en.pdf
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I was refering to the "data corruption" portion. That's a little far fetched, the worse that would happen is that two AV products fight for who gets to quarantine/delete something.

As for AV companies saying that, yeah they all say that, you know, marketing and all. I'm not saying there isn't a chance of some interference between X and Y products. For me, Avira and MSE even when in early beta played well together, and I've had first hand experience where Avira didn't detect something that MSE caught or vise versa.

I've personally tested a good deal of AV and real time anti-malware applications and most of the good ones play very nicely with each other, it's the crappier products that don't play well. I've gone as far as installing 4 of the top AV software together. They played nice in the sense that nothing technically broke, but file I/O performance tanked nicely.

In any case, it's a moot point. I'll continue to do what I do, you do what you do. I have very specific reasons to have the setup I do.

Anyway, the whole point of this derail was to say that you can easily have 2 realtime AV scanners installed with 0 complications or any performance loss. I guarantee you, you'll start to see a change in the paradigm that 1 AV is enough. More than likely you'll start seeing multiple scanning engines in 1 AV package (G-Data already does this).
 
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