I posted last week about Microsoft Security Essentials being available to
businesses in early October. I suggested that firms with less than 10 seats look at this tool as an inexpensive way to protect their computers. We don't have much experience with the product - most of our customers are businesses with more than 10 seats - but what we've seen looks good. Here's that post:
Microsoft Security Essentials for Small Businesses (FREE!)
When I saw the article below I wondered if I had missed a catch and would have to retract or qualify my endorsement. Turns out the author didn't find a catch and recommends it even for his mother.
Microsoft Security Essentials: Free, so what's the catch?
What was a bit eye-catching was his comparison to other products:
For the answers, I went to the AV-Test.org site, an independent provider of test scenarios that analyze effectiveness, behavior, and speed of IT security products, to see what it had to say about MSE. The report determined the following degree of protection on the tool's 6-point scale:
Protection: 4.0
Repair: 4.5
Usability: 5.5
AV-Test.org detected no false positives, indicated that MSE didn't seem to hurt the performance of the systems tested, noted that MSE scored well within the industry averages across the board, and reported that MSE supposedly detected 98.4 percent of the half-million viruses, worms, and Trojans in the AV-Test.org database, along with all its known rootkits.
My eyes began to scan the chart of other products that were certified (or failed to qualify for certification) with Windows 7 by AV-Test.org, and I was shocked by what I saw. Norman Security Suite 8.0 pulled just a 2.0 for Protection and Trend Micro Internet Security Pro 2010 got only a 2.5. Neither was certified by AV-Test.org. McAfee Internet Security 2010 got a 2.0 on the Repair side and wasn't certified. Some of the more outstanding winners, so to speak, were AVG Internet Security 9.0 (scores: 5.5, 4.0, 5.0), F-Secure Internet Security 2010 (5.0, 5.0, 5.5), Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 (5.0, 5.5, 5.5), Panda Internet Security 2010 (5.5, 5.5, 5.0), and Symantec Norton Internet Security 2010 (5.5, 5.0, 5.5).
For all the justified flack Microsoft has taken over the years, it's actually pretty good at security these days. Keep your Microsoft operating system patched and updated and you're going to be as safe as you can be in any environment with the right firewall and anti-virus protection. The Microsoft environment still has many more threats than other environments, but that's because more than 90% of the world is still Microsoft. All those years of hackers hacking has resulted in a more secure product from the company that remains king of the desktop.
While we recommend Chrome as a browser and Google Apps for mail, we still use Windows as the core operating system for servers and computers. That is beginning to change as we move into the Cloud, but don't expect Microsoft to disappear any day soon.
As always, be careful on the Internet even with security tools in place. But like most areas of technology, the price of protecting your home and small business computer is coming down.
Visit On-Site Technical Solutions for information on how you can move to Google Apps or other Cloud Computing applications. We can also help you with your mobile computing. You should follow us on Twitter @MHBoys and become a fan on Facebook. Call or text me at 1-949-212-2168.
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