Microsoft Admits That Third-Party Antivirus Is More Effective Than MSE

[DarkNet]

Microsoft has admitted Windows users should install antivirus above and beyond its own Security Essentials, describing its protection as merely a "baseline" that will "always be on the bottom" of antivirus software rankings.

 

Microsoft launched Security Essentials in 2009, raising complaints from antivirus rivals that such software shouldn't be bundled with Windows for competition reasons.

 

However, the most frequent complaint about Security Essentials is that it's not good enough: it flunked a pair of tests earlier this year - including one from Dennis Technology Labs, a testing firm affiliated with PC Pro's publisher.

 

Now, Microsoft has said it sees Security Essentials as merely the first layer of protection, advising customers to use additional, third-party antivirus - although the company stressed that wasn't because the product wasn't good enough to stand on its own.

 

 

 

Read more at source: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/security/384394/microsoft-security-essentials-is-designed-to-be-bottom-of-the-antivirus-rankings

[The Evil Overlord]

Well, paid av suites usually update their definitions and such more often so I'm not surprised, some even have excellent firewalls

But I am glad MSE is available as it's still better than nothing

[Torolol]

Microsoft advising customers to use additional, third-party antivirus ..

wait, didn't most PC-security gurus usually said that you should NOT use anti-virus on top of another?

[John.D]

Too bad most of the 3rd party AV programs crash, (ie:ZA, Avast,Bitdefender, Kaspersky, AVG). You only have to search on sites like the MS Answers site

[The Evil Overlord]

Too bad most of the 3rd party AV programs crash, (ie:ZA, Avast,Bitdefender, Kaspersky, AVG). You only have to search on sites like the MS Answers site

Sorry, but no they don't, mine has never crashed, neither has anyone else I know physically, and I'm less likely to believe online stats due to bias one way or the other, As it just happens my uncle works for Symantec UK and I've read a few of the satisfaction reports stating which product was serving which user better etc... and 3 of the products in your list are listed as among the better and more reliable products

 

edit.

 

Sorry about my choice of words if you found it offensive, it was not my intention.

[incendy]

I guess I am just lucky, but I have never ever had a virus. How the heck do the users at my work get them on a daily basis :D

[John.D]

Just because it MAYbe better, it doesnt mean it WONT crash. And just because it doesnt crash on your system, it doesnt mean it wont crash on other systems.

 

IMO most of these 3rd party AV programs are hype. And all these companies are after, is money. It really depends WHAT you do online, WHAT you get/download and WHAT you install.

 

If you install anything (and you've got no idea what it is, and /or what it does), then you'll need something. Or don't put it on the internet

[Davo]

Pardon my ignorance but if this was a flat out admission, wouldn't it be across most tech sites by now? I'm also not familiar with the source but I'm not from the UK.

[vcfan]

wait, didn't most PC-security gurus usually said that you should NOT use anti-virus on top of another?

its like trying to wear 2 rubbers on top of each other. the friction will cause a break,then you will get infected with something pretty nasty.

[The Evil Overlord]

Pardon my ignorance but if this was a flat out admission, wouldn't it be across most tech sites by now? I'm also not familiar with the source but I'm not from the UK.

a very closely related story to this was posted here on this site back in January I think along with cnet and a few other sites, front page, but the page became an all out flame war I can't seem to find it, I must have deleted the favourite.

[Mazhar]

Using MSE from day 1 since it has been released in my office PC, home PC, and Laptop and never had any issue with it, it has never crashed, nor I had any single virus on the PCs. I may agree that it is the basic security suite but it is way more better than third party suites available today.

[The Evil Overlord]

I guess I am just lucky, but I have never ever had a virus. How the heck do the users at my work get them on a daily basis :D

NSFW  links? :shifty:

[+kpo6969 Subscriber¹]

Pardon my ignorance but if this was a flat out admission, wouldn't it be across most tech sites by now? I'm also not familiar with the source but I'm not from the UK.

 

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-Admits-That-Security-Essentials-Is-Just-a-Basic-Anti-Virus-Product-386213.shtml

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2047365/windows-8-users-prefer-third-party-antivirus-to-bundled-tool.html

[Yorak]

Using MSE from day 1 since it has been released in my office PC, home PC, and Laptop and never had any issue with it, it has never crashed, nor I had any single virus on the PCs. I may agree that it is the basic security suite but it is way more better than third party suites available today.

The only thing that Microsoft Security Essentials has going for it is having little to no false positives. Look at any professional AV testing company results. MSE has much lower detection rates. Almost embarrassing low. How is it "way more better than third party suites available today"? There are only a handful of programs that are worse, and they are from companies I have never even heard of.

 

Furthermore, I have done my own AV testing once a year for the past few years. MSE has continued to give poor results. Of course you may say that if you know what you are doing, you will not get infected. I have not been legitimately infected once in my adult life. However, I like knowing that the software I have is going to do the job correctly. Currently, I use avast! because after testing, it had one of the best detection rates and it is also free (I have no need for the options in the professional version). Previous to this I was subscribed to ESET NOD32 for about three years and Avira Premium Antivirus for one. So in the end, I do not mind having a dozen false-positives since it is coupled with a detection rate higher than 98%.

[ozgeek]

For the average joe, MSE is all you need. I have MSE on all my systems and never had any issues. Infact I do my banking on my main system with MSE installed and I download trainers for games onto it.  Done this for years.

[Darrian]

How is this news?  From the very beginning the entire point was that it was a free antivirus in a day and age where the average idiot person wasn't running any form of antivirus.  It wasn't ever meant to be the best antivirus you could possibly get, it was only meant to be a pretty decent one for people who couldn't afford one.  Now it's built into Windows, and it does a good enough job that I don't feel the need to install a 3rd party antivirus.

[arend]

Previously, Microsoft would spend resources trying to improve Security Essentials' performance in tests. "We used to have part of our team directed towards predicting test results and figuring out what might be in someone?s test. There?s always a cost to that," she said. "If they are doing that work they are not looking at those threats that are affecting our customers. We always felt that was wrong. There?s something not right about that ? we?re not doing the best job for our customers."

The company decided to stop that practice and put its effort elsewhere.

 

"We put half of those people on focusing on what we call prevalent threats. We developed this new telemetry to look for emerging threats - sort of an early notification system that new threats were emerging. We had this group of folks start focusing on those threats and we saw that it increased our protection service level for our customers."

 

 

from the same art, basically they are saying that in the past there focus was on improving the test results instead of the actual threats and that they are now focused on protecting you better instead of making it appear so through test that they are protecting you.

[monkeylove]

There are free versions of other antivirus software.

[remixedcat]

Webroot has been excellent and it's very cheap (56USD for 5 PCs)

[NightScreams]

Some malware can enter a system through exploits and the user never be any the wiser no matter how much of a security pro they enjoy thinking they are. Even visiting a popular site infected with something that can exploit say java or flash. depending on what it does or it's intend. Botnets are usually bad about sitting there with no activity, then you have ones like Chameleon which steals money from advertisers.

Then you have the people who are easily satisfied with an executable just because someone else said "it's a false positive" So they ignore their AV warnings, not saying some false positives don't exist but I mean c'mon, don't be so gullable, the #1 security for your network is YOU and it's easy to circumvent all fail safes just by saying, it's ok. I would certainly question what code is doing if it sets off any AV alert, like why does *xx* need kernel level access when all it does is user level type stuff.

Many AV's don't acknowledge lesser known malware as it's a cat and mouse game. I had a file on my back up drive for 10 years that has just recently been flagged by most every AV, it belonged to an old game I got from one of those retro sites, I considered it benign but even virustotal set off every scan. So whatever, maybe it's false, maybe AV's just now caught onto the code but better safe than sorry.

 

I'm actually surprised there hasn't been that one poster who says they don't need AV cause they be elite. Usually there is always one at every forum.

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

I check vb100 tests from time to time, and notice Microsoft Security Essentials has been slipping over time.

https://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/latest_comparative/index

(From the Feb-Aug 2013 Chart)

 

MSE is currently still 90% Reactive Effective, and 80% Proactive Effective. It's very close comparative to Avira Free at the moment.

AVG (Free) is currently showing 95% Reactive Effective, and 75% Proactive Effective.

It looks like Norton, McAfee didn't submit there for Feb-Aug time frame.

 

AV protection effectiveness changes over time.

Right now, F-Secure, Kingsoft, and Optenet are leading from the ones tested.

 

The testing, however does not test how easy / difficult the products are to use or the resources (memory, cpu) they use.

 

I use Security Essentials, very good about how / where I surf, but in the case I suspect something, I use multiple different products / tools to check.

[+Warwagon MVC]

nor I had any single virus on the PCs.

 

That you know of :laugh:

[farmeunit]

For the average joe, MSE is all you need. I have MSE on all my systems and never had any issues. Infact I do my banking on my main system with MSE installed and I download trainers for games onto it.  Done this for years.

I've found quite the opposite.  I usually install MSE for other people, just because of no nagging to purchase, and I ALWAYS get those machines back to work on later.  A few of them infected so bad, I had to spend several hours on them cleaning up.  I just won't do it anymore.  Not worth the trouble.  I've been going with Avast lately, but have always use Avira for myself.  For paid, I use Kaspersky on main machines.

[Mazhar]

That you know of :laugh:

 

What you mean?

[HoochieMamma]

Every time I see MSE on someones computer it's usually disabled/trashed and the computer is full of malware.