Goodbye Microsoft Security Essentials: Microsoft Now Recommends You Use a Third-Party Antivirus

Microsoft Security Essentials (Windows Defender on Windows 8) was once on top. Over the years, it’s slid in the test results, but Microsoft argued the tests weren’t meaningful. Now, Microsoft is advising Windows users to use a third-party antivirus instead.

This revelation comes to us from an interview Microsoft gave. Microsoft’s official website still bills MSE as offering “comprehensive malware protection” without any hint that they no longer recommend using it. Microsoft is not communicating well with its users.

A Strong Start

Microsoft Security Essentials was once on top of the rankings. In 2009, AV-Comparatives.orggave it a very high score and said it was the best-performing free antivirus.

MSE was very appealing to Windows geeks like us, who quickly latched onto it. It received very good malware detection scores, was extremely speedy, and was free. Not only was it available for free — it wouldn’t hassle you and try to upsell you to paid antivirus solutions, like AVG and avast! do. MSE was a breath of fresh air — both in its interface and its speedy performance. Its test results showed it was ahead of the pack, so it was best antivirus at the time.

We’ve been recommending MSE as the free antivirus to use for years because of this. It’s included by default on Windows 8 and named “Windows Defender.” This is one of the big security improvements in Windows 8 — you have an antivirus included so every Windows user has protection. It would be nice if Windows users finally didn’t have to seek out a third-party antivirus.

Sliding Scores and Excuses

Over the past several years, Microsoft Security Essentials has slid in the malware detection scoring tests. AV-TEST’s 2011 annual review ranked Microsoft Security Essentials last place in protection among all the products it tested. In October 2012, Microsoft Security Essentials scored so low that it lost its AV-TEST certification. In June 2013, MSE received a zero protection score from AV-TEST — the lowest possible score. It’s also come last in other recent tests, including one by Dennis Technology Labs.

The below chart shows MSE at the bottom of AV-TEST’s charts for July and August 2013. When it comes to malware protection, it tested below every other antivirus program tested.

At the time, Microsoft argued that the tests were not representative of the real world. They said they were focused on trying to stop real-world threats, not compete in tests where the detection of rare malware was a significant factor. They argued that avoiding false positives was an important goal and that real-world experiences were more important than arbitrary test results.

Geeks like us here at How-To Geek believed them, taking them at their word. We certainly had used Microsoft Security Essentials on our personal computers for years. We hadn’t encountered any malware, even after performing scans with other antivirus programs to get a second opinion. We liked Microsoft Security Essentials for being so lightweight, unintrusive, and not trying to upsell us to paid security suites full of system utilities we don’t need. We liked the idea that Windows 8 users wouldn’t need any additional antivirus protection, eliminating another complicated system tool from Windows users’ lives.

Microsoft Has Stopped Trying

The Microsoft Security Essentials website promises “comprehensive malware protection” and “award-winning protection,” so users would be forgiven for believing that Microsoft was committed to making MSE a capable antivirus solution. But Microsoft is now saying that MSE is only basic protection that users shouldn’t rely on.

In an interview with Dennis Protection Labs, Holly Stewart, the senior program manager of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, said that Microsoft Security Essentials was just a “baseline” that’s designed to “always be on the bottom” of antivirus tests. She said Microsoft sees MSE as a first layer of protection and advises Windows users to use a third-party antivirus instead.

According to Holly Stewart, Microsoft “had an epiphany a few years ago, back in 2011, where we realised we had a greater calling and that was to protect all Microsoft customers.” She says that Microsoft passes its information on to other antivirus makers and helps them make their products better. “We used to have part of our time directed towards predicting test results,” but these people have now been directed to focus on emerging threats and share that information with other antivirus companies.

She went on: “We’re providing all of that data and information to our partners so they can do at least as well as we are. The natural progression is that we will always be on the bottom of these tests. And honestly, if we are doing our job correctly, that’s what will happen.”

Nevertheless, she argues that “baseline does not equal bad” and says they provide a high-quality antivirus. But Microsoft themselves are recommending users not use MSE, so it’s hard to take that seriously. This isn’t a product average people should use — it’s better than no antivirus, but not something we should recommend. Microsoft is doing a disservice to its users by telling antivirus testing companies that they don’t recommend MSE for average users and telling average users that MSE provides them with “comprehensive malware protection” on their website. Microsoft needs to pick one message and stick to it.

If You’re a Geek, You Can Get By With MSE

Now, if you’re a geek like we are, MSE and Windows Defender are very usable. If you have good security practices and know what you’re doing, you can manage just fine with this lightweight option. But average Windows users don’t always follow proper security practices and should use a strong antivirus that does well in tests — as Microsoft themselves now recommend.

If you’re a geek, you probably shouldn’t recommend MSE to your friends or install it on your parents’ computer. Yes, it’s a shame — MSE’s lightweight and hassle-free nature make for a great interface and a faster computer. But the core of an antivirus is the detection engine, and Microsoft appears to be throwing in the towel here.

So What Should You Use?

To find an antivirus product that actually offers good protection, consult an antivirus test website and see how your antivirus of choice stacks up. Luckily, one thing hasn’t changed in the latest test results: We still don’t recommend purchasing a paid antivirus because there are solid free options.

avast! Free Antivirus has done well in tests, offering comprehensive and free antivirus protection. Unfortunately, it’s heavier than MSE, its interface is more overbearing, and it tries to upsell you to a paid product you don’t really need. But that’s the price we pay for solid antivirus protection. For average users — not geeks who can get by with the minimum protection — we’d recommend avast! Free Antivirus.

---

We’d like to apologize for continuing to recommend Microsoft Security Essentials for so long, in spite of test results. We found it worked for us and we didn’t like how heavy and obnoxious other antivirus solutions can be. We believed Microsoft when they argued that MSE provided “comprehensive malware protection” for real-world threats and that antivirus tests weren’t representative of real-world results, as MSE performed well for us. We feel betrayed by Microsoft — they made an internal decision to let MSE decline without telling us. They’re still communicating two different messages — one to antivirus testing companies in interviews and one to average users on their website.

Anti-virus Comparison

A Free Anti-Virus Comparison: 5 Popular Choices Go Toe-To-Toe What is the best free antivirus? This is among the most common questions we receive at MakeUseOf. People want to be protected, but they don't want to have to pay a yearly fee or use bloated security suites with unwanted features. I myself am a free antivirus user for these very reasons. Discovering the best anti-virus isn't easy, however. There are a lot of points to consider including the user interface, resource and overall effectiveness against the baddies. Let's take an in-depth look at five popular choices (Avast!, AVG, Ad-Aware, Avira and Microsoft Security Essentials) to see which is best. Criteria Our performance testing in this article consisted of a selected scan of a single 500GB mechanical hard drive that was approximately half-full. We used the full scan option. Our gauge of memory usage is based off the memory the software uses while running in the background and is the rounded average of what I witnessed over three minutes of use. Protection information comes from AV-Comparatives and AV-Test, two leading sources for information about antivirus effectiveness. The specific studies referenced are AV-Comparative's March 2012 Detection Test andAV-Test's June 2012 round-up. All testing was done under Windows 7 64-bit. Lavasoft Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ Lavasoft's rather wide main menu does a good job of providing information without overwhelming the user. Most of the features are turned on or off using sliders and the big, bright "Scan Now!" button makes it immediately clear where a user needs to click to perform a scan. I was somewhat confused by the custom scan options, however, because individuals drives can't be selected before a specific box in the options is checked. Lavasoft tries to lure users in by displaying advanced features that can't be used until the full version is activated. It's a bit disappointing to find a feature is not available, but this approach is less bothersome than the sidebar ads used by AVG. Performance didn't prove to be a strong point. A full scan took a tad over twenty minutes, the second-longest result. The background application consumed about 32 megabytes of RAM while idle. That's not enough to drag down most systems but it is by far the worst result among the software evaluated here. AV-Comparatives still does not include Lavasoft products in its file detection tests. AV-Test does test it, however, and found that it was able to handle 99% of recently discovered threats during the most recent round-up. The only flaw is 0-day attacks. Lavasoft detected just 80% of those threats, which ties Microsoft Security Essentials for last place. By the way, you can grab Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro for free in our Rewards section. It's just 500 points! Avast! Avast! features an interface that appears smooth and modern relative to most competitors. Its large window includes a lot of free white space and provides all the information you need to know about your computer's current protection. I really like the software's real-time shield menu. It lumps all of the different threat vectors which Avast! protects against into one menu and shows you how much of each have been scanned. It even updates in real-time as new potential threats are checked. Advertising is included but is mostly restricted to the installation process and the main menu. The computer scan and real-time shield menus, which users will deal with most frequently, are devoid of ads. A full scan of our test drive required about 15 minutes, the second-best result. The background process required 3.5 megabytes of RAM at idle, which is technically the middle result. Avast! missed about 2% of all samples thrown at it in the last AV-Comparatives malware detection test, an average result. The last AV-Test comparison agreed with those findings. AVG The interface of AVG is simple. It provides a list of icons, each representing a form of protection, and places the scan functions to the sidebar.  The "Scan Now" link is literal. Click on it, and AVG will starts to work on your entire computer without any additional prompts. While the basic anti-virus features are easy to use the additional components are a bit bewildering. AVG includes everything from e-mail protection to rootkit protection. A lot of these components are handicapped, however, and direct you to buy one of AVG's paid solutions. Other icons direct users to AVG products on other platforms, like Android. AVG posted the least impressive scan time result. It required almost 23 minutes to chew through our 500GB test drive - about 75% longer than the quickest competitor. The background process, however, was the second smallest. It consumed just 2.4 megabytes of RAM at idle. AV-Comparative's last file detection test found that AVG missed about 3.5% of all threats thrown at it, one of the least impressive scores in the test group. AV-Test, however, found that the software detected 99% or recent threats in its last round-up. Avira Avira has a confusing interface. For example, performing a specific scan requires that the user go to the System Scanner menu, then click on an option, then click a very small magnifying glass icon. Alternatively you can click the gear button on the main menu, but this opens up another menu that declares you must be in "expert mode" to change settings. Uh, what is expert mode? The big fat "Scan!" button used by competitors is more intuitive. In-app advertising was light, but I was hit by a pop-up advertisement immediately after installing the software. Pop-up ads on my desktop are extremely annoying and not something I want to see, ever. There are also many features which are visible, but disabled until you buy the full version. Avira blew away the competition in our performance tests. It required just over 13 minutes to perform a full hard drive scan and its background process consumed a measly 1.8 megabytes of RAM at idle. This software is clearly the best for users who prefer protection that is light on system resources. Avira did extremely well in the last AV-Comparatives file detection test. It missed less than .5% of all samples and scored second-best overall, beating all other free solutions tested. Avira also detected 99% of recently discovered threats in the last AV-Test roundup. Microsoft Security Essentials Microsoft Security Essentials is different from the competitors because it's not a marketing tool. All the other vendors offer their free anti-virus in an attempt to earn name recognition and impress users, but Microsoft has no paid anti-virus to sell. This makes for a clean interface that's not cluttered by advertisements. Some of the cleanliness is due to a lack of features, however. MSE can scan for, detect, quarantine and attempt to remove a virus, but that's all it does. There's no mobile version, no e-mail protection, no bundled anti-phishing. It is, as the name implies, only the "essentials." MSE posted middling results in our performance tests. It required almost twenty minutes to fully scan our test drive and its background process consumed about 6.8 megabytes of RAM at idle. Early testing of MSE suggested it was surprisingly competent, but more recent tests have been less kind. MSE came in last during the most recent AV-Comparatives file detection test. It missed almost 7% of all samples. AV-Test found that it missed 5% of recently detected samples in its last round-up. So Which Is Best? Avira is the technical standout. It has posted excellent scores in recent protection tests and it also ran away from the competition in our performance metrics. The downside is a confusing user interface. I had to explore the software for a few minutes before I understood how to operate it. If Avira could make the software just at tad more intuitive it would have the perfect product. Avast! may be a better option for users who want to fuss with protection as little as possible. It is nearly as good as Avira in our performance benchmarks and it offers a slick, simple interface. Advertising is kept to a minimum, as well. Lavasoft and AVG are suitable choices, but both have a catch that may be significant for some users. Lavasoft uses far more resources than the competitors while running in the background and AVG has an unattractive interface loaded with advertisements for the full version and other AVG products. Both offer competent protection, however. Last, and least, is Microsoft Security Essentials. It was not the slowest in our tests, nor did it eat the most RAM, but protection studies have shown it to be the least effective at stopping threats by a large margin. Missing 5% of recent threats in the AV-Test roundup doesn't sound like much, but all other competitors missed 2% or less. Going with MSE makes you substantially more vulnerable.

What is Malware? – Tutorial for Beginners

Malware has been a big problem today. Malware is short form of malicious software. A malware is a software designed to infect a computer system without owner being informed. Thousands of people have been victims of malware. In this article I will discuss all the types of malware, and give you an example of a Windows Trojan in use. The reason I will use Windows is because malware is very rare in Mac and Linux computers.

Types of Malware Software:

Computer Viruses – A computer virus is a malicious software that is developed to infect a computer. It is designed to spread from one computer to another and to damage a computer hardware, software and files. Once the virus infects a computer, it replicates or reproduces itself. Viruses are like parasites because they need a host to attach themselves to in order to infect a computer.

Worms – A worm is different from a virus because it doesn’t need a person to be able to spread and infect systems. Worms most often take advantage of known bugs in computers to spread. Computer worms are major threats to large networks.

Trojan Horse – A trojan horse is a malicious software that appears to do one thing, but actually does another. It is mostly used to control the victims computer rather than infecting or destroying files on it. Some trojans may be relatively “harmless” to your system, but other trojans pose a far greater effect to your computer. A trojan horse can monitor your internet connection, grab your email addresses, access passwords and more.

Keloggers – A keylogger is a hardware or software device that monitors each keystroke a user types on a specific computer’s keyboard. Once installed, this device will automatically load from the start-up and start capturing each and every keystroke that was typed on the computer. Any person with a basic knowledge of computer can use keylogger. You can check my post “What is Keylogger Software?” for more information related to keyloggers.

Remote Administration Tools – A Remote Administration Tool (also called as RAT) is s a software used to take control of a computer from a remote location. RATs can be used either for legal or illegal purpose. Once the software is installed on a computer the administrator can do almost anything on the remote computer.

Adware and Spyware – Adware (Advertising-supported software) is any software application in which advertising banners are displayed while the program is running. On the other hand, a Spyware is software that sends information from the user’s computer without their knowledge. Spyware programs can collect various types of personal information, such as Internet surfing habit, sites that have been visited etc.

Adware and spyware can bring the computer system to its knees. They are detrimental, lowering the performance of the computer. The victim of these nasties might need to replace data, and might lose unique files.

How Malware Works

To show you an example of a malicious program, I will use a well known Windows Trojan, ProRat. ProRat opens a port on infected computer which allows the client to perform various operations on the infected computer. Once ProRat is installed on a computer it’s almost impossible to remove it. In the following video I will show you the procedure that a hacker will take to gain control over the victims computer using Prorat.

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

How To Prevent Malware?

There are a couple things you can do to prevent yourself from being infected by a malware:

1. Make sure you have good and up-to-date anti-virus software installed on your computer. Also if there is an automatic update option on your anti-virus software, make sure it is enabled.

2. Make sure you have a firewall installed on your computer and make sure that it is actually enabled. Firewalls protect against unauthorized inbound and outbound connections.

What Can I Do To Protect My PC Without Anti-Virus Software?

For plenty of users, getting and using anti-virus software can be a hassle for lots of different reasons. Not only can they be expensive (and then renewed every couple of years), but they can be slow, difficult to control, and a major eyesore if the product happens to display its name everywhere you look.
Whatever the reason may be, you might prefer to not have any antivirus software installed at all. In case you choose to go this route, here are some tips on keeping your computer virus-free without the protective software.

Safe Browsing Habits

The most important tip, no matter if you have anti-virus software or not, is to try to maintain safe browsing habits. It is impossible to get a virus without being on the Internet or reading data from some other source. This means to only visit websites directly instead of clicking on links (especially in emails), not downloading any files unless you’re 100% sure the source is safe, not surfing around for prolonged periods of time on sketchy websites, and so on.
If you’re not very good at determining what’s good or not, this might help. If it looks different from what you’re used to or get offered something that seems too good to be true, you’re probably a click away from getting a virus. These tips should be followed even if you do have anti-virus software as such products aren’t perfect, and some viruses, especially zero-day threats, can pass right through the anti-virus software without so much as a warning.

Updated Software

The next step is to make sure that all your software, especially your browser, is up to date. Newer versions will fix security bugs that may be present in older versions, and updates could also bring support for new security technologies. That way, it will be much harder for a hacker or virus to exploit a security hole to compromise your system.
In Windows, go to Windows Update in your Start menu to check for essential updates.  With a lot of software, there is normally a “check for updates” option in one of the menus.  Just click through the menus until you find it.

Online Tools

Another option you have is to use online tools to check if a file contains a virus. There are plenty of anti-virus websites that will check files for you. I recommend using this site as it automatically sends it to a much larger collection of sites and compiles the results of each test. This way, you’ll have a higher chance of finding a hidden threat or determining if you have a false positive.

Use Web Interface Security Features

Additionally, email providers such as Gmail and Yahoo scan any attachments in an email when you open it, so you should be able to trust the results of those scans. Note that the email providers only scan the attachments when you open the email in their web interface. Therefore, this feature won’t be of much help to you if you use an email client.

Security-Focused Browser Extensions

Another great idea is to use browser extensions, where possible, that have a focus on security. A top extension for Firefox would be NoScript. This extension helps block any website scripts that could potentially cause problems on your system. While it takes a while to tell it what’s good and what’s bad, it will help block any scripts that might break into a security hole. You can find more Firefox security extensions here. For Chrome, you could try SaferChrome.

Use Linux

Last but not least, it might be helpful to run Linux instead of Windows if you don’t depend on certain software. While the above tips are definitely worth your time, you can dramatically reduce your risk of getting infected by a virus if you use Linux over Windows. This is because roughly 90% of viruses are for Windows, and 9.95% of the remainder are made for Mac OS X. In combination with the above tips, you can virtually eliminate the threat of viruses and enjoy a safe computing experiences without worries.

Conclusion

While I do recommend using some kind of anti-virus software if you’re using Windows (as there are plenty of decent free alternatives), these tips should definitely help to reduce your overall chances of getting infected. Just be smart with what you’re doing, and you should be doing just fine.
What tips can you add? Is anti-virus software even really necessary? Let us know in the comments!