Windows 7: Study Finds Microsoft’s Free Antivirus As Effective As Symantec’s...

Study Finds Microsoft’s Free Antivirus As Effective As Symantec’s Norton

When Microsoft began offerings its antivirus software for free in June of last year, Symantec scoffed. “Microsoft is two to four years behind,” one of the company’s engineers told Network World.

In fact, catching up to the world’s largest antivirus firm seems to have taken Microsoft just one. Test results released Tuesday by the independent testing firm NSS Labs showed that Microsoft’s Security Essentials equalled and by some measures outperformed the majority of paid security software including Symantec’s Norton Internet Security 2010 in protecting consumers’ computers from malicious software.

In NSS’s test, Symantec’s software detected 72.3% of malware installed on test systems while Microsoft’s found 75%, though Symantec edged past Microsoft in “exploit prevention,” software designed to stop the attacks that invisibly install that malware. In NSS’s exploit prevention test, Symantec stopped 64% of exploits, while Microsoft stopped 60%.




Overall, NSS rated both companies’ software as “neutral,” along with competing companies like Kaspersky and Sunbelt Software. Software from antivirus firms McAfee, Trend Micro, and F-Secure received “recommend” ratings, while two companies that detected 60% of malware or less, ESET and AVG, received “caution” ratings.

Mcafee and Trend Micro being listed under recommended is insane. Those two are the last things I would ever install on my system.

We run Trend micro at work and it's been solid as a rock, no update problems, no outrageous system resource usage, no outbreaks on the network. It gets a bad rap...but as a commercial user, I've been very pleased.