Microsoft Security Essentials Loses AV-Test Certificate

helix2301 writes "Every two months, AV-Test takes a look at popular antivirus software and security suites and tests them in several ways. In their latest test which was performed on Windows 7 during September and October, Microsoft Security Essentials didn't pass the test to achieve certification. Although that may not sound that impressive, Microsoft's program was the only one which didn't receive AV-Test's certificate. For comparison, the other free antivirus software, including Avast, AVG and Panda Cloud did."

Re:Now for the rest of them...

[Anonymous Coward]

What is strange is MSE is the only one of those products listed I have ever seen effectively block any malware.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

People rely on AVs against 0-day threats?

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

Except, if you actually read the whole summary let alone the article, this wasn't a free vs. costly comparison. Three free anti-virus programs performed better. So even free vs. free MS lost.

Adblockers are more effective.

[Ectospheno]

A good ad blocker in your browser will be more effective in the long run than any AV software you install. Couple that with the common sense to not download and run every piece of crap you see on the internet and your computer will be fine. Every instance of an infection I've seen involved the person breaking one of those two simple rules.

Re:Defective product.

[hairyfeet]

This is not surprising to me, and why I've always said the MSE is only for geeks that aren't going anywhere dodgy and thus at little risk to start with. For normal folks there is Avast Free and Comodo Internet Security. Avast is good, but a little chatty but some people like chatty, and Comodo is good and pretty customizable but has a bit of a learning curve since it has sandboxing but if you stick with the defaults other than the occasional sanbox question it works good without getting in your way.

But I have taken machines I've got to wipe and refurb anyway at the shop and thrown different AVs on them and went to the kinds of sites I've seen the most bugs from, usually the "look at teh tittez" dodgy clip porn sites like redtube and the usual toplists and MSE was the ONLY one that never stopped a page loading, even ones that were obviously filled with malware, the rest would at least block most and keep the embedded malware scripts from running but not MSE, MSE seems to be more of a "scan a downloaded file" kind of protection rather than any good for dealing with modern nasties.

Oh and for those that need to clean up an infected box? May I suggest Comodo Cleaning Essentials [pcmag.com] as its a great tool to have to clean up an already nasty PC. You can run it from a flash or CD, no need to install, and its damned good at getting the nasties out. as you can see it got 4 and a half stars and is free, so if you have to clean up any infected machines its best to have both the 32bit and 64bit on a keyring ready to go.

Re:Defective product.

[InfoJunkie777]

I would agree that 3/4 of AV success is avoiding "dodgy" sites. However, I have never had any problems with malware on any porn site. The sites I have had problems with malware on were like pics of celebrities on Google Images, and you get a redirect to a malware driveby site, or, you lick on an ad that promises things free that should not be ... that kind of thing. I Used to AVG 2012, but when it went to 2013 it refused to activate, so I switched to Avast, and have not looked back. Higher rated and better protection.

Idiotically ineffective rating system

[slashmydots]

I'll save you the trouble reading. They're idiots. The winner out of all of them was bitdefender? That slows down your system like a damn boat anchor. I've had customers bring in a computer to my shop claiming it had a horrible problem and the only problem was that it had bitdefender. As soon as it was gone, responsive times dropped 10x lower. It's unbelievable how bad that product is. For them to not consider system performance in any way means they obviously have no idea what they're doing. The same goes for Kaspersky. Their new 2013 version is a nightmare for system performance. Norton Internet Security was third so yep, that's how responsible THESE idiots are.

Re:Now for the rest of them...

[fast turtle]

If it's a bad trojan/virus, MSE works quite well in getting rid of it. Keep in mind that MSE is basically Windows Defender on Steroids so it works quite well for some things.

I've been using it on a Win7-64 install for the last 2 years and it's been pretty damn decent as it simply stays out of the way. If I'm going to visit an dogdy place online, I'll use Palemoon (based on firefox) with noscript. Pretty effective in blocking crap I don't want while allowing me to at least get an idea if I want to finish loading a site.

Re:Now for the rest of them...

[chrish]

The fact that they rated Sophos so highly, when it opens up a huge exciting new attack surface for you [slashdot.org] sort of suggests this "certification" is fairly pointless.

Re:Defective product.

[tehcyder]

Then again considering the source... Bill Gates lying about Google? Why am I not surprised?

There is just an outside chance that the slashdot user "Billly Gates" isn't, in fact, the multi-billionaire former CEO of Microsoft.