Windows 7: MSE Voted Best Free Anti-Virus!

Take a look at that! MS is really moving up.

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/10...ty-essentials/
AV-Comparatives picks six malware removal winners - Ars Technica

Nice. That is my personal favorite.

hi !

Zen00: there is one extra "S" in the subject line, it´s perhaps a good idea to change it, before a lot of people gets confused ?

should be MSE not MSSE...

An important survey since till now there have been no comparative tests from neutral and at least somewhat authoritative sources which pits leading AV solutions against each other.

MSE (using the Beta) was one of 6 that was rated Advanced+ (the highest rating). Only MSE, eScan and Symantec rated "good" in malware detection and cleanup. Broadly that means that each of those 3 detected all the malware thrown at them and all removed the main functionality of those nasties but left behind a mixed bag of remnants after the cleanup - including (commonly) an unfixed hosts file.

The Malware included a range of nasties found in the wild - many will be familiar to anyone helping their (friends!) fix security problems on their computers - and know how difficult it is to remove some of this stuff.

It should be noted that this was a "Malware" test not a "Virus test" - but I think AV-Comparatives got it right doing that first coz we were really in the dark on that side of things.

The actual REPORT is a pretty easy read, and well worthwhile.

Please note this was not (as implied by the title of this post), A "vote" - it was a series of tests, weighted and scored.

So despite Norton's very negative attack on MSE and free AV solutions it is more and more looking like there is nothing "lightweight" about MSE (except its footprint and resource usage), that full price favorites like ESET will not necessarily perform as well in the realworld and that free favorites Avast and Avira (for example) may be outperformed by Johnny-come-lately MSE.

Users of MSE will expect that MSE will do really well in the anti-virus stakes too. Looking forward to some decent tests there too.

(as a footnote - Escan seem to be onto something. Where Escan removed malware it did so way better - ie perfectly - than all the other solutions - but it failed to remove 2 of the items of malware at all. That's a fatal result - but maybe they are close to getting this right).

Users of Avira and Avast can feel moderately at ease to know that their solutions removed all the test nasties (though imperfectly). AVG missed one malware sample and removed the rest imperfectly.

Of course a different set of Malware examples may have given a completely different set of results (may not have too) so at the end of the day this is all just indicative!

I'm bumping this post with these comments coz there is so much discussion here about the AV solutions people use - much of which is based on impressions (like "it's got a nice interface") whereas these are some pretty rigorous tests.

Symantec, MSE and Escan only Antiviruses to get a "GOOD" Rating in both "Removal of Malware" and "Removal of leftovers"? NOT SURPRISING!

Symantec is what I recommend for a paid antivirus (norton 360) and is the best with all its features, and 5.5MB RAM usage.

MSE is what I recommend for a free viruses, definitely the BEST for a free antivirus!

eScan? Never really heard of it. Will test it later on.

I would love to see a prevention test - And see how good SONAR 2 in Norton's new products does.

Hi there
For Malware I think I've posted a few times Malwarebytes Anti malware does very good so far - it found one that MSE missed

I've posted the log before but here it is again - run on a deliberately infected test system.


Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 1.41
Database version: 3065
Windows 6.1.7600
31/10/2009 10:21:40
mbam-log-2009-10-31 (10-21-40).txt
Scan type: Quick Scan
Objects scanned: 93221
Time elapsed: 2 minute(s), 45 second(s)
Memory Processes Infected: 0
Memory Modules Infected: 0
Registry Keys Infected: 1
Registry Values Infected: 0
Registry Data Items Infected: 1
Folders Infected: 0
Files Infected: 2
Memory Processes Infected:
(No malicious items detected)
Memory Modules Infected:
(No malicious items detected)
Registry Keys Infected:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\XML (Trojan.FakeAlert) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
Registry Values Infected:
(No malicious items detected)
Registry Data Items Infected:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoActiveDesktopChange s (Hijack.DisplayProperties) -> Bad: (1) Good: (0) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
Folders Infected:
(No malicious items detected)
Files Infected:
C:\Windows\Tasks\{7B02EF0B-A410-4938-8480-9BA26420A627}.job (Trojan.Downloader) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
C:\Windows\Tasks\{BB65B0FB-5712-401b-B616-E69AC55E2757}.job (Trojan.Downloader) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.


Both MSE and Malwarebytes found these (screenshot enc).


With MS's resources and the fact it's in MS's OWN interests to make Windows 7 as safe as possible I suspect MSE will become easily #1 before long.


However even MSE will have a problem with some of the "more intelligent" drive by type of infections which are almost 100% impossible to completely eliminate unless you disable any scripting in your browser (which renders most websites useless as they all need some sort of scripting to display correctly).


Cheers
jimbo

hi !

Charles Kane: "An important survey since till now there have been no comparative tests from neutral and at least somewhat authoritative sources which pits leading AV solutions against each other."

VB100 ?

or do you mean tests on antimalware ?

To access VB fully is big bucks! Their latest summary of tests are too arcane and not relevant to Windows 7 (Latest is with Server 2008). They haven't tested MSE at all (as far as I can work out).

But thanx for reminding me so I could wander around their poor excuse for a website!

hi !

they have tested Forefront which uses the same engine as MSE.
Windows 7 had not been publicly released when they made their latest test,
so i suspect we will see the results on Windows 7 in the next test.

Hi all

This is really for HOME users rather than work machines.

99% of problems on NON CORPORATE computers are usually MALWARE rather than the "classical Virus infection".

The Malware can fire up or launch a virus of course but if you rid your computer of Malware you should rarely - if ever - be plagued by viruses.

Malware these days is installed just by VISITING web sites - no download etc is necessary so this is why you should REGULARLY scan the computer for these types of attacks.

Viruses can be installed by downloading dubious content or opening attachements in emails. If you are careful here you won't be plagued by "Classical Viruses".

But as I said Malware is a totally DIFFERENT animal - especially the drive by infection method.

Note this form of attack --- very very common


Another common method of malware intruding an unprotected system is when visiting a site in Internet Explorer that displays an advertisement or misleading download link that you have to click on to continue. That's when the site installs one or more programs on your computer, without asking any further permission. Sometimes these are referred to as 'Drive-by Downloads'.


In this regard MSE does a great job -- could be better and it will be soon.

Cheers
jimbo