Slashdot Mirror
AV-Test Deems Windows Security Essentials "Very Good"
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."
But you don't want a third-party stack crashing the OS, so write it yourself and include it.
MS never actually wrote a TCP/IP stack. The one that's still in Windows is the development one (that was quite broken) that they stole from BSD back in the early 90s...
It's going to be funny to see the first virus that specifically targets MS' own "antivirus"!
A: I didn't make anything up. Not every processor in the world is rated in gigahertz. I have often seen a computer churning away, trying to catch up to the demands of it's anti-malware software, so that it could get on with the user's tasks.
B: As long as people continue to think small, and think "inside the box", we're all going to be stuck with malware and inadequate remedies for malware.
C: As an aside, I found and installed Windows Essentials inside a VM. I will admit, it has a small memory footprint, and the impact on performance is unnoticeable. How effective is it? Only time will tell.
D: Thank you all for the "flamebait" moderations, people. It only goes to show just how childish the fanbois are. :-)
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br