Just thought I would share few of my thoughts on Microsoft's new entry into the Internet Security department.
Microsoft released a new FREE application called Microsoft Security Essentials from beta a few days ago and I now have it installed on all my systems as a way to validate my earlier tests. It has a much smaller footprint than anything I have tried, and so far has passed my initial usage test as well as a good real time test.
I had a system with many obvious viruses, so with it offline I uninstalled all their security applications and installed MSE complete with the latest update and did a full scan. What it found it fixed, so I uninstalled MSE and reinstalled AVG 8.5, SUPER-AntiSpyware, Malwarebytes, and Windows Defender and did a full scan with all of them and no further problems were noted.
Now, in truth, I did cheat just a bit. Because I knew it to have multiple infections, I did my normal manual quick check to make sure what was currently in memory was killed before connecting to the Internet for the actual update process. The base installation was done from a file I had already downloaded into my thumb drive.
When all was said and done and I felt comfortable that the system was clean, I then want back with a manual check to make sure there were no obvious files or Registry entries left behind, and found no need for further cleaning.
Now, for those Refugees who catch an occasional single infection on their system . . . take my word for it, that is an impressive result!
The only thing I didn't like is automatically set to do a check for definition updates every 24 hours from the last update. That meant that because it was manually updated on this system yesterday about 10:30 AM, it would not check for another update until 10:30 this morning. The good news is that one of its new tricks is that if it finds something suspicious and it isn't in the database, then it halts access to the file while it goes for an update to the latest and greatest and then rechecks it.
If it still looks suspicious then it will block it under "suspicious but unknown signature". I am told that the database is updated at least 3 times per day, so this should be a workable setup for the average person.
On this system, as well as my beta-tester system, I didn't feel comfortable with that, if for no other reason than it is new technology. With about 5 minutes of research I was able to find out where the setting was in the Registry and how to gain access to it and change it to every 4 hours. This will guarantee that it will update every day when I boot, plus 2 more times during normal business hours. That should be sufficient as I feel the need for extra security, but not as much as if I were a truly high-risk user, as would be a frequenter of porn sites or gambling sites or social networking sites or such as that.
<FYI>, the Registry edit is: HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Microsoft Antimalware/Signature updates and change the value of SignatureUpdateInterval from 18 decimal (24 hours) to 4 Decimal (4 hours). In order to make this edit, you need to change the ownership of the Signature Updates folder from SYSTEM to you, then make the effective permissions for you to Full Control.
How about some feedback from some of you who have tested it over a longer period of time.
Microsoft released a new FREE application called Microsoft Security Essentials from beta a few days ago and I now have it installed on all my systems as a way to validate my earlier tests. It has a much smaller footprint than anything I have tried, and so far has passed my initial usage test as well as a good real time test.
I had a system with many obvious viruses, so with it offline I uninstalled all their security applications and installed MSE complete with the latest update and did a full scan. What it found it fixed, so I uninstalled MSE and reinstalled AVG 8.5, SUPER-AntiSpyware, Malwarebytes, and Windows Defender and did a full scan with all of them and no further problems were noted.
Now, in truth, I did cheat just a bit. Because I knew it to have multiple infections, I did my normal manual quick check to make sure what was currently in memory was killed before connecting to the Internet for the actual update process. The base installation was done from a file I had already downloaded into my thumb drive.
When all was said and done and I felt comfortable that the system was clean, I then want back with a manual check to make sure there were no obvious files or Registry entries left behind, and found no need for further cleaning.
Now, for those Refugees who catch an occasional single infection on their system . . . take my word for it, that is an impressive result!
The only thing I didn't like is automatically set to do a check for definition updates every 24 hours from the last update. That meant that because it was manually updated on this system yesterday about 10:30 AM, it would not check for another update until 10:30 this morning. The good news is that one of its new tricks is that if it finds something suspicious and it isn't in the database, then it halts access to the file while it goes for an update to the latest and greatest and then rechecks it.
If it still looks suspicious then it will block it under "suspicious but unknown signature". I am told that the database is updated at least 3 times per day, so this should be a workable setup for the average person.
On this system, as well as my beta-tester system, I didn't feel comfortable with that, if for no other reason than it is new technology. With about 5 minutes of research I was able to find out where the setting was in the Registry and how to gain access to it and change it to every 4 hours. This will guarantee that it will update every day when I boot, plus 2 more times during normal business hours. That should be sufficient as I feel the need for extra security, but not as much as if I were a truly high-risk user, as would be a frequenter of porn sites or gambling sites or social networking sites or such as that.
<FYI>, the Registry edit is: HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Microsoft Antimalware/Signature updates and change the value of SignatureUpdateInterval from 18 decimal (24 hours) to 4 Decimal (4 hours). In order to make this edit, you need to change the ownership of the Signature Updates folder from SYSTEM to you, then make the effective permissions for you to Full Control.
How about some feedback from some of you who have tested it over a longer period of time.
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