Microsoft Security Essentials; An Idiot Proof Anti-virus Program for Pc

There are a lot of free antivirus programs out there. In fact you may have free McAfee protection as they often bundle their software for free as either part of the Internet service or the purchase of a new PC. However McAfee and Norton are software programs that are comprised of a lot of code that can slow down your computer. Other software, such as AVG and Avast, have a free component to them that can be used forever, but this software can slow down your computer as well. As most of you know I have been running Microsoft Vista ever since it first came out.

What I have found out is that a lot of programs that run perfectly fine on XP do not run as well on Vista. I have used AVG for about as long as I have used Microsoft Vista. What I found is that AVG will catch and quarantine viruses, but would never actually get rid of the viruses. It wasn't a problem because the viruses were put away, but one day AVG just decided to stop working and there wasn't much I could do about it.

Uninstalling and reinstalling the software took forever, and I was stuck without any protection. So I decided to give Microsoft Security Essentials a run. It is a free program, completely free, not just certain parts. It is only compatible with XP, Vista and Windows 7. It will disable Windows Defender as it has its own antispyware components. The download is about as small as I've seen for an antivirus program at only 11 MB in comparison to 91 MB for AVG. Programs like McAfee need 250 MB of free disk space and 1 GB of ram is recommended for their highest level of protection. A lot of people are running McAfee on systems with the bare 512 MB that is recommended.

At only 140 MB free disk space needed, Microsoft Security Essentials leaves a smaller footprint in comparison to AVG, which needs 390 MB free. In defense of AVG, had I ran the paid version I might not have experienced some of the issues I had with their free version. If you are well versed with antivirus programs you should probably just go ahead and pay for protection. But if you are a novice and get pop ups asking you to upgrade the virus definitions, and you always respond by telling the software not to and you keep getting viruses, you may want to give this software a try.

The software may occasionally ask you to take action on viruses that it finds. As with a lot of Microsoft software it may not think that every piece of code that other antivirus or antispyware products take issue with are anything to be concerned with. However, the average person that downloads free antivirus software is not going to keep their protection current and will be confronted with options that are confusing when the software does find malicious code. This program has 4 simple tabs, home, update, history and settings.

The home tab tells you if you are up to date and gives you the option to scan for viruses and the ability to change the frequency of which the program scans. The update tab allows you to search for new virus definitions, the history tab tells you what has been found and allows you to permanently delete quarantined files and the settings covers the same settings that the other tabs do. It is that simple, never has an antivirus program been this easy to use. Security Essentials does not have settings that address scanning incoming and outgoing email because that email is already scanned when the code is read in real time. Most antivirus programs that do offer this ability tend to block outgoing email when such functionality does not work correctly.

Once you have installed the software there is an official forum you can visit if you have issues with the product. Microsoft should have offered antivirus software as part of Windows a long time ago. Windows has already had vulnerabilities that made it easy for someone to take over the system, and viruses inevitably lead to systems to crash and computers that need to be restored. I have never had to restore Windows Vista or Windows 98, but that does not mean that the possibility does not exist.

This is not the first time that Microsoft has put out antivirus software. In fact Windows Live One Care was a comprehensive suite of antivirus, antispyware, and OS maintenance utilities under one roof. A subscription provided protection for an amount to be paid annually for up to 3 computers. The software has been available since 2006 and Microsoft had a loyal base of subscribers. Microsoft Security Essentials replacing Windows Live One Care, and the program was not available for Windows 7 (not unlike the way that Windows Live Mail had replaced Outlook Express). Users of Windows Live One Care will continue to be supported until their current subscription expires. You can still find Windows Live One Care online for as little as $25 online.

At this point the only reason to use Windows Live One Care would be for the firewall and backup and restores utilities. The program can also tune up the computer, but never utilized a registry cleaner to do so. The second version of the program had entirely too many features to mention, but it did simplify a lot of tasks for most users. Users of the software should note that a key difference between Windows Live One Care and Microsoft Security Essentials is that the latter does run a genuine Windows validation check. This could pose an issue for users who have upgraded to Windows 7 that may not have necessarily paid for the software.

If you decide to use this software make sure that you are downloading from this link and are not downloading Security Essentials 2010. I added a hyperlink of a Google search for Security Essentials 2010 in the previous sentence to show readers that whenever a search has a removal guide as the first result chances are you have probably downloaded something that is not what it has claimed to be. Those results tell you that people are trying to remove the program, not download it. This is about as idiot proof as antivirus software is going to get. If you see a red icon in the system tray you have a problem and might want to click on the picture of a house with a flag on top of it to see if the software needs to be updated or if there is a virus that has come to the attention of your computer. If you see a green icon everything should be okay. Antivirus software for everyone else; you know the problem with Windows is that everything is okay until you decide to step out on faith and use someone else's software and you cannot figure it out. Once you make that courageous software, you encounter software that isn't as idiot proof as Windows software is and you get confused and make ill-informed choices. At the same time, Windows software isn't as technical as everyone else's and does not provide you with the type of intricate controls that other vendors allow. Those controls however, are only as good as the individual who is using the program ...