Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0 Released 175
Greg writes with this excerpt from Ars Techica: "Following a four-month beta program, Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) 2.0 has been released. The new version significantly revamps the heuristic scanning engine, adds Windows Firewall integration as well as network traffic inspection. The update unquestionably makes MSE, which has already become very popular due to its quiet but effective ways, even more of a must-have for Windows users. MSE has always been very good at finding and removing malware, but it has relied mainly on antimalware definitions. The improved heuristic engine makes it even better at detecting threats; at the same time, we expect the number of false positives to slightly increase as well. The new Windows Firewall integration is a minor improvement: it lets you tweak Microsoft's firewall from inside MSE."
Re:Nice and Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, it should nag you to update off IE 6.0...
Re:Great news! But... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:too much of a target (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd expect McAfee and Norton to be much bigger "bulls eye" targets, since they're heavily deployed in corporate environments. MSE isn't.
Re:Great news! But... (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:But... (Score:2, Insightful)
Who knows?
Very few people here actually run linux, they just say so to fit in.
Ummmm (Score:5, Insightful)
How's that any different from any other major AV programs? Some viruses shut down AV software. They know how to get most of the major ones, and perhaps all of them (AV software tells Windows it is AV software, they could use the same sort of thing). So unless you want to change all the time to lesser known AV softwares, from companies that you don't know about (and remember that fake AV software is big) then this isn't an issue.
What's more, the power in AV software on a system isn't virus elimination, it is virus prevention. The whole reason to run an AV program all the time, rather than something like a scheduled task, is it scans files as they come in to your computer, as they execute, and so on. So, if a virus tries to sneak in, the AV software can block it. The virus has to chance to do anything to the AV software as it is not running. It is a "position of primacy" sort of thing. Whoever is there first has the advantage as it can stop the other guy at the door. This is also why when a system gets infect, it is sometimes necessary to do an offline scan, boot from a CD or take the HD to a new computer, because the virus can prevent AV software from being loaded since it is already running.
Virus authors try to defeat any and all virus scanners. It is their business to get on systems. MSE has no special place in that. What matters is how well your virus software is able to pick up on them as they come in (and also how fast it runs as to not slow your system down). MSE isn't the best out there, but it is quite good.
Is being successful a bad thing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nice and Easy (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't Forefront also require you have a Windows Server 2003 or later with Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 server and System Center Configuration Manager 2007? That'd end up being $$$$