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AV-Test Deems Windows Security Essentials "Very Good" 318

CWmike writes "Microsoft's new free security software, Windows Security Essentials, passed a preliminary antivirus exam with flying colors, said independent and trusted firm AV-Test, which tested Essentials, launched yesterday in beta, on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. It put it up against nearly 3,200 common viruses, bot Trojans and worms, said Andreas Marx, one of the firm's managers. The malware was culled from the most recent WildList, a list of threats actually actively attacking computers. 'All files were properly detected and treated by the product,' Marx said in an e-mail. 'That's good, as several other [antivirus] scanners are still not able to detect and kill all of these critters yet.' It also tested well on false positives."
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AV-Test Deems Windows Security Essentials "Very Good"

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  • Malware? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by homes32 ( 1265404 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @05:03PM (#28459541)
    viruses, trojans, and worms, are all nice and dandy but what about malware? That is what most people have to worry about these days.
    • Re:Malware? (Score:5, Informative)

      by molafson ( 716807 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @05:08PM (#28459605)

      "AV-Test also examined the program's anti-rootkit skills and its ability to scrub a system of malware it finds with a limited number of samples and "found no reasons to complain," Marx said. "[Security Essentials] is able to remove found malware very well, but further tests against larger sets of samples are required before we can come to a final conclusion."

    • Re:Malware? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Talchas ( 954795 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @06:14PM (#28460399)
      Even against viruses, trojans and worms, it really won't stop them from getting owned. It may help against old viruses spreading, but it is unlikely to help much against new ones. And new ones often will take out the antivirus, leaving you with an even falser sense of security.
      • Re:Malware? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Jurily ( 900488 ) <jurily@nOSPAM.gmail.com> on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @07:57PM (#28461333)

        Mod parent up. The "several other [antivirus] scanners" won't detect new ones because they're tested against before release.

        From a software engineering point of view, malware is state of the art.

      • Re:Malware? (Score:5, Informative)

        by trifish ( 826353 ) on Thursday June 25, 2009 @02:53AM (#28463825)

        > It may help against old viruses spreading, but it is unlikely to help much against new ones.

        You refer to heuristic scanning, or pro-active security. This means that the software is able to discover new unknown viruses based on their behavior or properties.

        You might be surprised but MS Security Essentials has been found to have the best heuristics (60%) in retroactive tests (outdated definitions, therefore, unknown viruses) with by far the least number of false positives (which is crucial for good heuristics).

        They even overtook the former leader, NOD32 (and often even in performance).

        Source for heuristics (2009):
        http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_report22.pdf [av-comparatives.org]

      • You're just cringing at the fact that Microsoft did something right, and are looking for any reason to bash them. This is Slashdot however, and everyone is supposed to be a Microsoft cynic.

  • by dov_0 ( 1438253 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @05:04PM (#28459553)
    MS is lifting their game.exe
    • by shermo ( 1284310 )

      I tried to open that file but it didn't work. My norton is working to protect me from malicious files very well thankyou.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by bertoelcon ( 1557907 )

        I tried to open that file but it didn't work. My norton is working to protect me from malicious files very well thankyou.

        If norton was doing its job, it would not allow you to open norton since it is also malicious.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Mista2 ( 1093071 )

      But they still think the US and it's friends are the whole world:

      From the download site:
      Not available in your country or region

      You appear to be in a country or region where the Microsoft Security Essentials Beta is unavailable.

      This beta is available only to customers in the United States, Israel (English only), People's Republic of China (Simplified Chinese only) and Brazil (Brazilian Portuguese only).

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by gbjbaanb ( 229885 )

        This beta is available only to customers in the United States, Israel (English only), People's Republic of China (Simplified Chinese only) and Brazil (Brazilian Portuguese only).

        Isn't that list of countries the ones bot-spamming the most crap out of their PCs?

        Perhaps its more targetted than conspiracy?

  • by supercell ( 1148577 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @05:06PM (#28459589)
    Norton, Symantec and others have created an entire multi-billion dollar subscription based industry around virus protection for Windows. I wonder how they are going to react to this potential bomb for there business model?
    • Well, we know one thing for certain: "Resistance is futile"

    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @05:13PM (#28459665)

      claim anti-trust and attempt to sue.

      How dare microsoft plug security holes themselves.

      Come on EU, save us from a secure windows platform.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Skylinux ( 942824 )

      I wonder how they are going to react to this potential bomb for there business model?

      I don't know how BUT I do know that it will take a while considering the speed of Norton AV (consumer edition)....

      ohh and anti competitive law suit in the EU in 3,2,1

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mysidia ( 191772 )

      Microsoft has raised the bar. To continue to have people buy their product, their competitors will need to further differentiate themselves from Microsoft's now free offering.

      That means doing it better, providing features the customers want (that MS doesn't deliver), innovating.

      e.g. Enhancements and capabilities that are beyond Microsoft's expertise, or that MS isn't interested in delivering.

      Probably mostly for enterprises, security management capabilities. There are elements of security to ma

  • Anti-trust? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @05:08PM (#28459603) Journal
    Should be interesting to see if the current AV vendors try the anti-trust card with MS for this. I imagine it will be a vary hard case to make since really all they are trying to do is fix their broken OS.
    • Re:Anti-trust? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bill_kress ( 99356 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @05:10PM (#28459639)

      There was talk about antitrust suits when Microsoft first included the TCP/IP stack in windows. Before that you had to go to another vendor.

      It made life a LOT more easy once it was built into the OS.

      I'm pretty sure the same thing will be true of AV software.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        It should be noted that Bill Kress is a Public Relations "professional" who works under contract for Microsoft.
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Be that as it may, his statement of comparing the relative usability of windows during time periods before and after MS made a windows component change is no less valid. Additionally, his statement supposes that similar integration (assuming it is done properly) will likewise make windows usability improve.

          So, AC, your very obvious implication that he is astroturfing despite relating nothing but easily confirmed facts is a waste of everyone's time involved. If you want to take a swing at MS' credibility, by

      • Re:Anti-trust? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by b4dc0d3r ( 1268512 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @05:54PM (#28460127)

        TCP/IP should be in the OS - it is a resource management issue and is a hardware issue. If only a handful of apps used it, maybe third-party would be acceptable. But you don't want a third-party stack crashing the OS, so write it yourself and include it.

        On the other hand, Anti-virus products shouldn't even be needed. MS should be able to write software with fewer holes in it. They have piles of static analysis tools, piles of research, and piles of other stuff. They just don't want to take the time and fix things (including testing), so they put wrappers like UAC around things instead of fixing it.

        I've seen lots of bug reports ignored by MS just because it doesn't look like it's exploitable, only to have some crafty fool figure out how to exploit it. I can cause a stack overflow in Oracle 10.x drivers by sending a VALID openquery through a linked server. Runtime catches the error, but then it causes a crash in the error reporting because the stack is trashed. Currently it's a null refrence, but how hard would it be to turn a stack overflow into a server root hack? Not all that hard. But they won't fix it because the problem is in a third party module, and if that one is fixed the MS error disappears. I'm just saying these vulnerabilities are all over the place, especially since they have so much third-party code.

        One person or company making the problem, and the solution to the problem, does not look good. Especially since MS only publically fixes holes they publically admit to. There might be piles of security problems no one else knows about, but MS AV might know to watch for suspicious behaviour that only MS knows about.

        Giant virus outbreak because it's too expensive to patch a particular problem, or can't get it out fast enough, and only Windows SE customers are protected so everyone ditches Symantec and other AV and goes to Windows. It's not that far-fetched, and they might even do it that way by accident. When it's possible to have that kind of advantage and wipe out your competition in a single event like that, especially if it's unintentional, that's a problem.

        Just saying, the mafia used to take protection money, but you were being protected from the mafia. Problem and solution should be from different sources. Therefore your analogy is invalid, same as if my hair were a bird.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Blakey Rat ( 99501 )

          On the other hand, Anti-virus products shouldn't even be needed. MS should be able to write software with fewer holes in it. They have piles of static analysis tools, piles of research, and piles of other stuff. They just don't want to take the time and fix things (including testing), so they put wrappers like UAC around things instead of fixing it.

          Microsoft software is already more secure than most vendors. Recent major viruses have either:

          1) Spread via social engineering. (The kind of thing UAC is suppose

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by b4dc0d3r ( 1268512 )

            Let me rephrase. They don't consider bugs important unless someone can turn it into a vulnerability. Previous examples have shown that it is possible to turn a seemingly benign bug into a security hole, with a little flash of insight.

            I should be able to submit bug reports directly to MS, instead of having to talk to a desk jockey at the OEM who never passes it on to the company that wrote the software. They would prefer you didn't do that. They will take your "send error report to microsoft" data, but a

            • I've reported more than a couple bugs to Microsoft. My track record on getting them fixed is significantly better than for bugs I've reported to open source projects. (Admittedly, the place to report them is hard to find for most products, and Windows itself. Some are easy though.)

              For example, SQL Server Management Studio shouldn't open windows off-screen anymore, it'll sanity-check the saved window coordinates with the current monitor layout. (Last version would gleefully open windows off-screen if its sav

            • Re:Anti-trust? (Score:5, Interesting)

              by shutdown -p now ( 807394 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @10:54PM (#28462633) Journal

              I should be able to submit bug reports directly to MS

              secure@microsoft.com [mailto]

              I have actually submitted information about a vulnerability that way. It was fixed.

          • by dbIII ( 701233 )

            Microsoft software is already more secure than most vendors

            "Most vendors" have a single bit of visual basic crapware to sell as shareware so I really do not see this as a valid argument. Microsoft likes the pretend they are in the "enterprise" space now so that is what they should be compared with - not something to display a purple gorilla.

            • Maybe you weren't paying attention: I just compared their security to Sun and Adobe. Or are you now arguing that Sun and Adobe don't make "enterprise" software?

              • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                by dbIII ( 701233 )
                I'm saying that Microsoft have such a lax attitude to security that they even had a flaw to allow arbitrary code embedded in images to run when you tried to view the image - something that is so incredibly stupid it should only exist in the realms of science fiction. Their systems do not rate at all in terms of security in comparison to things designed with security in mind. That is why I had to reply to your "Microsoft software is already more secure than most vendors" to politiely point out it is no mor
        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by jonbryce ( 703250 )

          UAC in theory is just like sudo. There is nothing wrong with the idea of it, just the implementation.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by L4t3r4lu5 ( 1216702 )
            Well, you're correct in that it's a control for rights elevation for a particular process, but way, way off apart from that.

            sudo is a manual control; You have to physically type the command into your shell to instigate a rise in privilege. UAC asks you if you want to raise privilege. To a (l)user, desensitised as they are by Microsofts' abuse of message dialogues, clicking "Yes" is almost coded into muscle memory, and it's between MS and the users to sort out who is responsible for that situation.

            AFAICT,
      • That was a stack? I thought that was swiss cheese. I do remember that they replaced parts of the cheese with a stable stack but they didn't write that stack. They borrowed it from an already well established system that was designed around the network years prior.

    • Re:Anti-trust? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by not already in use ( 972294 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @05:55PM (#28460135)

      I imagine it will be a vary hard case to make since really all they are trying to do is fix their broken OS.

      How is releasing anti-virus software fixing their "broken OS?" Are you implying that a non-broken OS is completely immune to viruses and malware or are you just spewing typical anti-Microsoft vitriol?

      Oh ok... Thought so.

    • Re:Anti-trust? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by westlake ( 615356 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @07:11PM (#28460993)

      really all they are trying to do is fix their broken OS.

      It isn't one OS.

      Every OS is "broken" in the sense that there are always avenues of attack.

      It can't be otherwise so long as mere humans have the final say on which programs can be installed and which programs can be run.

      To call something "Malware" is fundamentally a value judgment.

      I think the geek would be the first to howl if he could only install the apps approved and certified-safe by Redmond, Cupertino, or his favorite Linux distro.

    • by Thaelon ( 250687 )

      Considering those antivirus companies' entire business model depends largely on flaws in a single product line of another company does it really matter if they go out of business? They're parasites on a monopoly.

    • Yes, It is like tow truck companies suing GM for making a more dependable car.

      Wahoo!! I think I got the first car analogy in!

  • by EdIII ( 1114411 ) * on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @05:08PM (#28459611)

    It's interesting, but at this point can Microsoft really convince anyone that they are serious about putting out a quality product? I think that is there biggest problem here... PR.j I will admit I laughed when I saw the article, and it is Microsoft's reputation that made me laugh. Maybe it is good, but I am I really willing to give them the chance with something that important?

    I can remember articles talking about Windows Firewall in the past as being pretty darn good too, yet it seems the first thing a tech person does is to deactivate these days.

    Let's face it. If Microsoft was seriously competent about doing these "core" activities, would the 3rd party market be as big as it is?

    In any case it will be interesting if they start shipping Windows with this pre-installed. Then maybe the manufacturers won't be so quick to bundle Norton/McAffee with their products, and THAT will be fun to watch.

    • by westlake ( 615356 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @08:00PM (#28461367)

      It's interesting, but at this point can Microsoft really convince anyone that they are serious about putting out a quality product?

      Microsoft is strongly positioned as a client OS. On the server. In core business applications. In development tools. In console gaming....

      In software software sales, MS Office is bigger than games.

      Bigger than anything. It is the tail that wags the dog. The 900 pound gorilla. Choose whatever metaphor you like.

      The Win 7 Beta opened to rock-solid reviews and has effortlessly claimed about half the market share of Linux on the desktop. Operating System Market Share [hitslink.com]

      The geek knows all of this intellectually, but he can't process it emotionally. It is easier to live within the bubble.

      I can remember articles talking about Windows Firewall in the past as being pretty darn good too, yet it seems the first thing a tech person does is to deactivate these days.

      Windows Firewall wasn't designed for the techie.

      It was designed for the user relentlessly nagged by requests to approve outbound access for the obscure subroutines of programs that already have his permission to access the net.
       

      • Windows Firewall wasn't designed for the techie.

        Why not? If you just want to block per-port or per-application, it does just that. And how often do you really need something more complicated than that on a single machine (we aren't talking about dedicated firewall boxes here)?

  • by Sponge Bath ( 413667 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @05:09PM (#28459623)

    With all that talent, resources, and internal knowledge they should have a slam dunk. Unfortunately I have a lot of distrust built up from over the years about what MS sticks under the hood. It will take many years of good reviews and endorsements before I feed comfortable that the MS AV does not give any special passes to iffy software from a MS partner, or that the MS firewall will correctly block things from going out when configured to if the originator is an MS component.

  • It makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @05:09PM (#28459631) Journal
    The Microsoft style is to solve problems by throwing a lot of people at it, and they use that strategy fairly well. Instead of simplifying the structure to where it can be reasonably dealt with by a small group of people, they are happy to make it big. For example, compare the number of system calls in the windows kernel with the number in the Linux kernel. Having so many more system calls means each internal refactor will have to take more into consideration, as well as requiring more testing, but it's ok, Microsoft is happy to throw lots of testers at it. The ASP.net model, which basically wraps a whole system around html/javascript to encapsulate it and make it easier for the average programmer was an amazingly man-hour intensive job, once again requiring lots of testing and many special cases, and yet Microsoft did it.

    That operating style is especially well suited to AV software, because it is a job that can be easily broken up and handed out to different programmers, and catching all the viruses is a job that can be easily helped if you have a lot of programmers and testers. It makes sense that Microsoft would write good AV software.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Ok, I have to quibble with the ASP.NET comment. Bash Microsoft all you want but get your facts straight.

      ASP.NET is not primarily an HTML/Javascript wrapper. Its purpose is much more ambitious than that. I would argue that the greatest strength of ASP.NET is providing an easy method for a web developer to utilize the .NET framework. Yes, its complex but so are the enterprise-class applications I build with it. Some of us build things more complicated than a blog publishing platform. And thus we need more rob

      • ASP.NET is not primarily an HTML/Javascript wrapper. Its purpose is much more ambitious than that. I would argue that the greatest strength of ASP.NET is providing an easy method for a web developer to utilize the .NET framework. Yes, its complex but so are the enterprise-class applications I build with it. Some of us build things more complicated than a blog publishing platform. And thus we need more robust tools.

        This is an interesting comment. I am interested in knowing what sorts of things the integration with the .NET framework is helping you to do. For the most part I have found I only need an extremely small subset of the .NET framework for working with ASP. It is also hard for me to think of a case where I would need MORE than a small subset of the .NET framework. So if you read this, Mr. AC, please let me know.

        Also, my experience with ASP has been the opposite: as I've made more complex web applications

        • Re:It makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Dutchboy2000 ( 1584481 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @06:33PM (#28460637)
          In my view, using a "small subset of the .NET framework" is not an argument against using ASP.NET. .NET is a huge and extremely varied framework (as you evidently know well). It would be a very odd case where any particular application - whether it be web or Win32 - would require the majority of the functionality provided through .NET.

          But the fact that all I need is a screwdriver does not lessen the value of having a well-stocked toolbox. The first time I had to create a web application that could consume and perform complex recursive logic on XML files created by a mobile application framework, I didn't have to wonder whether .NET provided the necessary functionality. I knew it did even though I'd never used it before.

          I'm not going to sit here and tell you there aren't things about .NET that drive me nuts. And, in fairness, I don't have a lot of experience with other web application frameworks. Still, .NET gives me what I need when I need it and without a lot of fuss. The biggest problems I deal with each day have very little to do with my framework of choice and much more to do with things outside of my control. C'est la vie, eh?

          By the way, I'm the Anonymous Coward that posted above. I just created a new Slashdot account so now I can be a Well-Known Coward.
    • For example, compare the number of system calls in the windows kernel with the number in the Linux kernel.

      Where would I get data to compare these two items? I see from Wikipedia that Linux has around 320.

  • So far it's been running very well. I would presume that they should be able to make something that will protect their own operating system after all they did code it.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by ichthus ( 72442 )
      Yeah, but this is a bit like a car manufacturer providing locks for their doors after the fact.
    • Their OS gave rise to a cottage industry of antivirus. The whole reason we need protection is because of their insecure code. I don't trust them to protect it.

  • by geekboy642 ( 799087 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @05:16PM (#28459711) Journal

    It's always been this way. Microsoft rests on their laurels until an upstart company starts making money at their expense. Between Mac, Linux, and the insane proliferation of general crapware, MS has a real image problem on their hands. Luckily for Microsoft, the best and the brightest can be wooed by the kind of money they're able to throw around. When they throw their top programmers at a job, the results are stunning, just witness the turnaround from early Vista to the current beta of Windows 7.
    Sadly, the end result will be bad for consumers. Other security companies will be badly hurt by the release of this freebie, and MS will go back to sleep, leaving the security marketplace to stagnate like the pre-Firefox browser market stagnated.

    • by icebraining ( 1313345 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @06:03PM (#28460227) Homepage

      There are many AV suites already released for free - Avira, AVG, Comodo, etc. Avira is much more popular than paid AV suites around here.

      • Does Avira require registration? I got pissed at other AV tools because they either require registration or magically ballooned into ridiculous clown-barf color schemes.

        AVG Free was my favorite, but they discontinued the previous version (7.5?) and made 8.0 install only on XP SP2 or above. Or something like that. So I went with something else that required me to sign up. Sure they want to track users or somethinig, but I delete everything they e-mail me with so it's really me being up-front - I'm not go

    • by Plekto ( 1018050 )

      Sadly, the end result will be bad for consumers. Other security companies will be badly hurt by the release of this freebie, and MS will go back to sleep, leaving the security marketplace to stagnate like the pre-Firefox browser market stagnated.
      *****

      And the *real* problem isn't if, but WHEN, all of those systems are hit by a piece of mal-ware that is purposely written to defeat Windows 7's built-in AV. With everyone trusting and few people installing other products, it could be a potential nightmare if th

  • by jpedlow ( 1154099 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @05:22PM (#28459781)
    So I decided i'd check it out for my XP box.... "Not available in your country or region You appear to be in a country or region where the Microsoft Security Essentials Beta is unavailable. This beta is available only to customers in the United States, Israel (English only), People's Republic of China (Simplified Chinese only) and Brazil (Brazilian Portuguese only). " So...not Canada? *sigh* Well, time for Nod32 or kaspersky I guess...
  • by Horar ( 521864 ) <horar99@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @05:32PM (#28459889) Homepage

    A computer consultant advocating Windows is like a doctor prescribing cigarettes. It creates a lot of extra work.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by mozzis ( 231162 )
      A computer consultant advocating Windows is like a doctor advocating a healthy lifestyle. Stop twisting reality to fit your fundamentalist preconceptions.
    • by dublin ( 31215 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @06:27PM (#28460567) Homepage

      Any computer consultant worth his salt won't get drawn into silly squabbles over OS/platform/software/language/etc., and will recommend the *best* solution for the client. Don't ever let bigotry blind you...

      I describe myself as a dyed-in-the-wool Unix proponent (24 years now), but I run Windows on my desktop machines, and have recommended Windows on many occasions, including some large-scale Fortune 20 deployments, where it made more sense. (For servers, I avoid Windows unless the app environment really needs it or runs markedly better there, but there are still a good number of those situations. Given my druthers, I design new systems around open source technologies, mostly because of the lifecycle cost savings. Auditing all those licenses is a non-trivial cost and PITA, not to mention acquiring them in the first place - and avoiding licensed software makes leveraging cloud computing *much* easier...)

      Windows certainly has its faults, and I'm a big critic, but it also has its place, and for a good number of things (even some server-based things), Windows is the best choice - sometimes by a good margin.

  • by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @05:59PM (#28460187) Homepage

    Microsoft should not be making antivirus software. It should be fixing its vulnerabilities.

    The OS has many fundamental problems, some of which cannot be resolved without redesigning the core internals which would render all older software incompatible any newer version of the OS. This sort of problem was identified long ago, but it was decided that the cost of change would be too great, the burden on third party software vendors too heavy and ultimately, it would be too slow to adopt and migrate for all users. And the longer they wait for this eventuality, the more expensive and prohibitive it becomes to make such important changes.

    If this sounds like the U.S. moving from Imperial measurements to the globally accepted Metric system, you wouldn't be alone in this observation.

    Microsoft still cannot fix the "stupid user" problem but there are many things they could fix if they had the balls to do it. And they could take a page out of Deep Freeze's playbook and create a system where the user must first unlock the system before they can install anything. But perhaps the similarity to the adoption of the metric system doesn't stop here. Perhaps there will come a point at which everyone will move on to another system leaving the "imperial" one behind... well I can dream can't I?

  • About time (Score:3, Funny)

    by avandesande ( 143899 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @06:05PM (#28460273) Journal

    When you consider all the extra crap they ship with their OS, including something that is actually useful like this should have been done 10 years ago.

  • by sugarmotor ( 621907 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @06:07PM (#28460305) Homepage

    'All files were properly detected and treated by the product,'

    Aren't there other attacks besides file-based ?? This sounds rather silly!

    Stephan

  • Redmond WA, June 24 2009. Microsoft is proud to announce today its acquisition of independent and trusted testing firm AV-Test. Details of the transaction are not immediately available but rumors involve a large cash payment and real estate on a remote Caribbean island.
  • by Satanboy ( 253169 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @08:09PM (#28461419)

    Has anyone tried this out yet to see what the performance hit is?

  • I just tried to get the beta and got this message;

    Not available in your country or region

    You appear to be in a country or region where the Microsoft Security Essentials Beta is unavailable.

    This beta is available only to customers in the United States, Israel (English only), People's Republic of China (Simplified Chinese only) and Brazil (Brazilian Portuguese only).

    Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

  • "independent and trusted firm"

    It's fascinating to me as I read marketing lies how unimaginative and similar they are to 419 scammers. While marketing people aren't crafting their message for critical thinkers you would imagine at some point in a marketing seminar somewhere someone would jump up and say

    Instead of making the subject line of the e-mail "You've won the lottery", how about "Dearly beloved?"

The reward for working hard is more hard work.

Working...