Did you know that Microsoft is now offering a free application and quality Antivirus for Windows? Last year, Microsoft released Windows Security Essentials. Microsoft’s free, lightweight product that Anti-virus/Anti-Malware Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 protects against malicious software. Best of all, unlike other products available for free, there is never try to upsell or excessive pop-ups, to convince you to pay for a premium product. Is usually the case with the likes of AVG Free and other “free” malware. The integrated with the firewall in Windows Vista and Windows 7 will be combined to provide all the protection you need for your Windows computer. In Windows XP, the firewall is less configurable, but offers enough protection.
Earlier this year, Microsoft released the second version of Security Essentials 2011, which provides better protection and a user interface update.
Windows Security Essentials updated daily and provides a scheduler with a standard time to scan your computer every week. The interface has four tabs. The Home tab provides a view at a glance the status of the protection of your computer and provides the ability to perform a manual scan.
The Update tab provides status updates of virus signatures and the ability to manually update the signatures.
The History tab, as its name implies, provides a historic view of malware that was detected cleaned or quarantined.
The Settings tab provides access to the application configuration allows you to scan the schedule, what to do if detected malware files, file types and folders, change the scans and ruled out.
You can also SpyNet the level of involvement for Microsoft. This is a feedback function, the anonymous sends information to Microsoft about the various malware that attempts to infect your computer. This feature allows you to look better and quicker response from Microsoft to virus attacks, which ultimately best for you and the user community host. There are three levels to choose from:
You can choose not to participate.
Basic membership – the default, or
Advanced membership.
Basic membership is sending data to where the software comes from, the actions you apply or Security Essentials is applicable and whether these measures were successful.
Advanced membership sends additional information such as location of the software, file name, how the software works and how it affects your computer.
This is the option I usually choose, because I make the software better, I think that’s good for me. For the paranoid, you can not participate.
Total Security Essentials offers a great need, and very capable free alternative to commercial anti-virus / anti-malware products on the market. For a market that is seen over the years ranging from annual subscription fees twice yearly payments to the costs that you have already paid for an annual fee, it is no wonder that these vendors began to complain when Microsoft added the product, the automatic Windows Update server.
If you paid the subscription to another anti-virus products out there want to renew, I suggest trying Security Essentials, again, at least for a few months before the retry.