Microsoft Security Essentials, Users Like It, Testers Hate It
I learn a lot from Redmond Report readers. One case is Security Essentials, a free antivirus program that you all seem to generally like.
One organization that doesn't like it is AV-Test, a security test shop. AV-Test compared the Microsoft tool against other free tools and found it sorely wanting. In fact, it only picked up on 64 percent of zero-day exploits. When the attacks have been out for a while Security Essentials handles 90 percent. That might be an A in high school, but it is an F in security.
A tool with this kind of result is better than no tool, but far from optimal.
Meanwhile three different posters to our original article report good results with Security Essentials. Go figure.
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/12/2012 at 1:19 PM