Xavier Media®

I just tried Microsoft Security Essentials for my Windows computers and I have to say that it's a fantastic antivirus software. McAfee and Symantec really need to watch out since this is going to make them lose customers.

We all know that the antivirus softwares from the big companies like McAfee and Symantec requires a lot of resources from your computer, they always pop-up when you're in a hurry to do something and asks you to restart your computer. They all claim they scan your computer "in the background without you noticing" and we all know that's just b*s because they take so much resources from your computer that you can almost not do anything while the scanning is taking place.

Now there's a fantastic solution from Microsoft and it's called Microsoft Security Essentials.

All you need to download Security Essentials is a valid (genuine) version of Windows   (XP, Vista or Windows 7). The installation was done in a few minutes (including updating of the virus signature files needed to do an up-to-date scan).

I installed Security Essentials on two of my computers: One IBM running XP with 1 GB ram memory and the other one an ASUS running Vista with 4 Gb memory. A full scan on the IBM took a little bit longer then on the Vista machine, but the time difference was much smaller then I had expected. I have had Security Essentials installed on both computers for little bit more then a week now and I have never noticed it. So if you compare to the McAfee virus software I had before I'm never switching back, because McAfee tried to take over the computer all the time and especially if I was in a hurry to print or do something important before an important deadline.

As with most other antivirus softwares you can schedule scans and you can select between a full scan or a quick one.  As a result of the scan I did Security Essentials found an old keylogger I had on my L drive (it was a full copy of the Ghost Keylogger we sold on behalf of Sureshot Software a couple of years ago). This keylogger had been there for several years and McAfee had missed it every scan……

Sorry McAfee, I'm not renewing my 3 licenses with you in January. I'm staying with a much better "life guard" called Security Essentials.

About the author
Andreas co-founded Xavier Media® in 1996 and has since been involved in all kinds of development, marketing and making money online.