Good free options have been available for years, mainly from no-name companies. Nervous consumers figure they’re better off buying major brands, like Norton security software from Symantec Corp. Well, here’s a major brand for you: Microsoft Corp.
Security Essentials is now available at microsoft.com. It is the successor to the company’s Windows Live OneCare, a $49.95 computer protection suite that included identity theft protection, a firewall program, and a file backup utility along with the malware detector. OneCare never gained traction, perhaps because its early versions received savage reviews from independent testing labs. Microsoft learned its lessons, and this summer, OneCare was ranked second among 16 rivals by one major testing lab.
Of course, no antimalware product is perfect, especially not against the latest attack programs.
Still, some protection is better than none. Microsoft reckons that about 60 percent of home computer users are defenseless against malware. Some do not know they need protection; others don’t know how to get it; still others are put off by the expense, which can run $60 or $70 a year. Unprotected computers put the rest of us at risk, because many are saturated with zombie programs, which let bad guys seize control of them and bombard the rest of us with spam e-mails and malware attacks. Some tainted computers even pump out ads for fake antivirus programs. Install one, and you have turned your own computer into a zombie.
To get enough people to use antimalware software, there must be a product that is free and simple, and comes from a reputable source. And here it is.
Microsoft Security Essentials takes the company’s basic antivirus system and combines it with Windows Defender, a spyware filtering tool released in 2006. Defender blocks spyware - programs that cover your screen with pop-up ads or swipe your personal information -
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