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."

Comments

Malware?

[homes32]

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?

[Talchas]

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.

Probably Pretty Good

[Sponge Bath]

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.

MS still has superb programmers

[geekboy642]

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.

Re:Anti-trust?

[not already in use]

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:directed self-interest

[dublin]

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.