Microsoft just launched Microsoft Security Essentials

I just published a post that I had started a while back when MSE was just coming out in beta.  Hopefully, you’ve just read that or will go back and give it a look.   As of this last Tuesday (9/29/09), Microsoft has released MSE.  It’s basically an anti-malware offering that provides real-time protection for your home PC, meaning that it guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.  It’s free to all genuine Windows users (Windows XP SP2 or later), there are no subscription fees, and thus no registration (beyond the standard download registration) or other personal information required for billing.

Microsoft Security Essentials is simple to install, easy to use, and always kept up to date (quietly, I might add) so you can be assured your PC is protected by the latest technology. It’s easy to tell if your PC is secure — when you’re green, you’re good. It’s that simple. I think many folks are going to like the simplicity. In my former life as a military pilot, we had a phrase for self-guided missiles called “launch and leave”, this is pretty what your experience should be with MSE.  MSE is lightweight compared to many of the other offerings out there (of course I’m speaking from a system impact perspective, certainly not from a protection perspective) – and it runs quietly and efficiently in the background. As I’ve alluded to in past posts, MSE leverages all the security and anti-malware ecosystem that Microsoft brings to the table for our corporate level Forefront product – you should also take a look at the MMPC blog post linked below for more details on that.  

Of course, you can download and get lots of other information from the official site here: http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials

MMPC blog post: http://blogs.technet.com/mmpc/archive/2009/09/29/introducing-microsoft-security-essentials.aspx

I saw some competitor blogs about MSE, as you might expect they had almost nothing constructive, or accurate, to say.  What i did find interesting, however, was the overwhelming backlash in the comments to those posts.  The folks that did get to do the beta, including me, generally had very good experiences with it, and as I alluded in the post right before this, the results of actual anti-malware tests by independent orgs are showing that MSE is providing excellent protection.  In fact, one of the testing orgs gave it very good marks for handling rootkits.  But that’s pretty much what I’ve been trying to get across for some time now in my blog – Microsoft really does get security, and a bet on Microsoft technology for security going forward is actually a very good bet. 

I know the MSE beta was not widely available, so I’m encouraging you to take a look at it now.  You know, it even works in Windows 7 XP mode – which, btw, I’m using it for.  I’m also loading it up for all my friends and family, which I know I’ll have to support, so in effect I’m definitely making the bet myself (or I wouldn’t ask you to do it).