@Gator what lady said was it's not from microsoft.com and it's meant to be an MS rep making the claim. So she doesn't trust the legitimacy of the quote itself. All you are saying is that this site says it and that site says it, but you see those sites still aren't microsoft.com so you're not saying anything that refutes what she said.
What is the basis of that graph though? MSE comes with Windows, of course its going to have the biggest market share, just like IE. However, IE is not nearly the best browser.
Layback Bear is a guy, the "lady" I'm talking about is a Senior Member at Microsoft in their security division. If you'd like to do the research on her quotes, you can do that. She was interviewed after those quotes were made public and did not say she was misquoted.
Anyway, I have no more interest in this thread. Its going nowhere fast. Good luck.
MSE does not come with Windows. One must choose to download and installed it separate from installing Windows 7.
Here is a real world example, yesterday I had a friends PC that had been infected. I ran MSE, and it tells me everything is candy canes and rainbows.
I run Malwarebytes and I get 170+ infected files. I ran SuperAntiSpyware and found some others.
This is why I do not recommend MSE as primary protection. Thats the point I will leave this thread with as I've already given my suggestions in post #2.
@Gator OK I thought her username was ladybear and it was laybear. I didn't mix her up with the MS rep. Your suggestion(AVAST) is noted and I think you and your links look right that MSE isn't so good. (other than it being slim). I wasn't aware of the news re MSE, thanks for getting me up to date on that. And Ia gree the market share graph doesn't prove anything re effectiveness, particularly when it's MS.
@ladybear MS didn't say to use different ones that's true. I'd note though that according to the quote, it was suggested, in that the rep said the others are at least as good. The rep said "We’re providing all of that data and information to our partners so they can do at least as well as we are" That is about as close to saying to use other anti virus or anti malware software 'cos they aren't being competitive anymore, as you are going to get.
If A is being judged by some body B. (in this case, MS by some anti virus testers) and A/Microsoft seriously believes the tests are not showing A's strengths, then the correct response, particularly by a smart company that has a product that does its job well, is to show faults with the tests. "Look here's this real world threat, your tests don't cover it, ours is the only software that does. Your approach is wrong". But if they're not trying to meet the stndards of any kind of objective tests by a neutral body, and they're just not taking it seriously, not even trying to do well in any test. Pretty much asking their competitors to do it by giving them the threat info and saying they can be at least as good as MS at it. That's MS bowing out. And it even says "Redmond previously invested a lot of money trying to make Security Essentials achieve better results in all these anti-virus tests" And now where is that money being spent? Not on Security Essentials. If it was i'd expect the rep to say so. If you read between the lines, on some of the quotes of that rep.. one could say it suggests MS is telling people to use others. It's certainly not being competitive to say others can be at least as good.
If it was great, and the tests didn't show it in its true light then the company making it would (if they had any sense and MS do), come out all guns blazing talking about flaws in the tests. (rather like a well run country might come out all guns blazing disputing a shoddy UN fact finding report!), giving an argument that can be judged on its merits. You can dispute the authenticity of the quote. You can dispute the validity of the tests. But then if that were so, MS should state the flaws in the tests. Until then, MSE is not doing good and probably deserves its poor score. (Except for the fact that it's slim! it deserves props for that).
This is my overall security procedure that i follow once every sunday.
I use AVAST! Lightweight and doesn't use many resources, Good solid protection and easy to use.
I also keep on hand, MalwareBytes, Adwcleaner, JRT, SuperAntiSpyware, RogueKiller, MalwareBytes Anti Rootkit and will run ESET online scanner perhaps every two weeks and i've never been infected since i started this routine. I highly advise anyone if they want to keep their system clean? Then follow something very similar to what i do, just my personal preference and i do have some level of OCD when it comes to keeping my computer tidy and safe, thanks:)
The terminology matters when making these statements.
I'm going to venture a guess and stay that none of the files that Malwarebytes found were infected*. The files themselves were probably a type of malware that MSE ignores by choice (e.g. Conduit - which some other AV tools ignore also).
*An infected file is one that was once clean, but was modified by a virus. A virus and the files that it infects are not typically cleaned by Malwarebytes.
This is why some people suggest that you use MSE as and antivirus and Malwarebytes for other types of bad files. MSE's reputation has been discussed over and over in this forum. There is no need to rehash it here.
I'm not attempting to bait you back into the thread. I'm only suggesting that you pick your words carefully. Especially since you are job hunting. Also, the link that you put in post #2 has been discussed in many other articles. There is considerable disagreement about what Holly Stewart said.
My problem is that I keep getting taken out of context because my first post about MSE clearly states my disapproval of MSE "As a primary deterrent" which is exactly what I said. I was not aware how many times that article was discussed here as the last few years I've been focused on school and didn't come around here much so I apologize if thats the case.
To me Holly basically says we aren't the best and we aren't trying to be the best. If I'm going to suggest something, its going to be the best because I don't want to be the person who suggested the bare minimum protection and you get infected and lose your files. If I recommend MSE, its not #1, thats all I'm saying.
As far as the terminology goes... Thats mbams words.
Let me start be saying that I'm not MSE's biggest fan. And yet I still install it for some users that I support because there is no better alternative (long story).
You are correct, I ignored the "primary" part of what you said. I did notice it, but I did not know what you meant, so I ignored it. That was my error. I should have asked what you meant. So.... what did you mean by "At least not as a primary deterrent"?
Most people here say that you should not run two real-time scanning antivirus apps that the same time. So I don't think that you are saying to run AVG as the primary and MSE as the secondary. Malwarebytes claims that they are not an antivirus app and that they ignore certain groups of bad files. So, what should be the primary protection/deterrent against viruses? Can that primary app be used along side of MSE?
I'm not attempting to argue - I really don't understand your whole primary thing.
I've not researched the whole Holly thing because it won't matter what I find. People think what they want to think about MSE. The article that you quoted (and others like it) have taken on a life of their own. I'm not attempting to stop that. I can say that other articles claim that she did not say those words at all. Still other articles claim that she said something like that, but her words were taken out of context.
Infected:
During my reading/researching for this thread, I revisited places where the staff at Malwarebytes defines an infection a bad file changing a good file. They then went on to say that Malwarebytes does not handle those types of changed files. In other words, if a bad file infected shell.DLL on your computer, Malwarebytes is not going to cure it. They might detect it, but they don't try to fix it. If you saw 170 infected files being removed by Malwarebytes, then they contradict themselves in their terminology. Why do the terms matter? See this long thread.
Perhaps the terms don't matter when talking about Malwarebytes. Maybe I was thinking back to those other two threads and being too sensitive toward your use of the term infected. I was attempting to be helpful. Sorry.
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