Microsoft’s Cloud Goes Dark Across the Globe

There was no hacking involved in this incident at all and the story posted about an MS hack is irrelevant to last Fridays loss of access...
As far as MSE goes people are quick lately to bash it...i've been running it for almost 2 years now on multiple PC's and have had zero incidents.

MSE performs fine on all of my installs with little feedback about problems. My Typhoid Mary users are advised to buy Malwarebytes Real Time protection to run in addition to MSE which has kept any of them from being reinfected.

I've not found another AV that is as lightweight, trouble-free and reasonably effective, though I've heard good reports on ESET and Kapersky. So absent any experience with the paid AV's I recommend the one free AV which doesn't bother the user like Avast does with its tricky add-ons and registration/upgrade prompts.

I used AVAST! free on my XP machines without any problems or slowdowns (one can always turn off the add ons if they slow the computer down: I haven't found it necessary). I tried MSE when I got my Win7 machine last summer and found out recently it wasn't updating automatically as I had thought. To get it to update automatically, one has to schedule automatic scans. That requires the computer the computer to be on at the same time everyday, which my computer isn't. I also had a couple of trojan's slip through that MBAM free caught (AVAST! has never let anything through). AVAST! automatically updates several times daily no matter when I'm on the computer. I ditched MSE and went back to AVAST! free a couple of months ago on my Win 7 machine and haven't had any problems or slowdowns since.

I've never heard of the updating issue you describe. It may have been an anomaly because MSE is normally updated via Windows Updates.

gregrocker said:

I've never heard of the updating issue you describe. It may have been an anomaly because MSE is normally updated via Windows Updates.

Only the program (and that was normally only monthly), not the virus defintions.

lehnerus2000 said:

patio said:

As far as MSE goes people are quick lately to bash it...i've been running it for almost 2 years now on multiple PC's and have had zero incidents.

The trouble with AV programs is that you don't actually know if your machine is clean.

Unless you regularly run multiple scans from different scanners, all you really know is that your AV program can't find any problems, that doesn't actually mean that there aren't "nasties" lurking.

That's why most of us use multiple scanners.

MSE is updated via Windows Update, both clients and definitions. MSE by default updates its definitions once everyday at the time the computer was booted up, so if the computer was booted up at 3pm then MSE will update everyday at 3pm, in addition to any automatic Windows Update routines the computer might have.

It didn't happen for me and verifying that was a pain. I only found out by a lucky accident when it was posted here one weekend that MSE updates weren't working. Even after the updates were supposed to be working again, I had to macontinue to manually download them. I suspect I'm not the only one who has the problem and people just aren't aware of it. With AVAST!, I know when the updates occur.

MSE has been having quite a few problems lately: the update issue, the corrupt download, and poor reviews from several sources. I can blow off one bad review as sour grapes or being biased but too many strikes against MSE have been piling up.

This thread is "Microsoft's Cloud Goes Dark Across the Globe". Doesn't really matter to me if it was because of a hack, an expired security signature, or little green martians. The "cloud" is vulnerable to failure. Just like a stove, refrigerator, car, computer or toilet can fail. Each of us has a responsibility to make sure we have a Plan B or even a Plan C, Plan D, or Plan E in place for these failures.

As far as anti-virus program bashing is concerned, I'm against it. If someone wants to use MSE, or AVG, or McAfee, or Norton, or "Billy Bob's Real-Time Real Deal Secuity Suite", that's their choice. If they're happy with it, so be it.