Microsoft Security Essentials vs. Windows Defender?

On Sat, 26 Mar 2011 11:21:07 -0700, "relic" <> wrote:

>
> "Big Steel" <> wrote in message
> news:...

> > I use Nod32 on my laptop Vista, and it has gotten false positive hits.
>
> Do you know what triggered it? (I've used NOD32 for 11 years and haven't
> seen one yet.)


I haven't used NOD32 for as long as you, but it's been three or four
years now. Not to say that a false positive isn't possible with any
anti-virus, but I've never gotten one from NOD32 either.

On 3/26/2011 2:41 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
> On 11-03-26 10:27 AM, Big Steel wrote:
>> I use MS Security Essentials on my Windows 7 desktop computer. Any AV
>> solution can get a false positive hit.
>>
>> I use Nod32 on my laptop Vista, and it has gotten false positive hits.
>
> That's true, and I've gotten false positives on both AVG and Avira
> before. But really, getting a false positive on what is obviously an AVI
> video file, is a bit brain-dead. It has no business scanning something
> like that at all.
>
You do know you can exclude that file type from the scan. But what's to
say that the file type has been faked and it is a virus?

> Secondly, if there is a false positive, how easy is it to get to the
> developers to report the false positive? I've had good success with both
> AVG and Avira in being able to easily upload the false positive file to
> their email account or a website repository, and they've sent back
> reports to me stating that they did indeed find it to be a false
> positive, and they made alterations to the scanning signature right
> away. That goes a long way for me towards establishing a good opinion of
> the product -- everybody makes mistakes, but do you correct it quickly
> and without hassles?
>

I don't think it's that big of a deal. It's certainly something I
wouldn't give it much thought and haven't.

On 3/26/2011 3:46 PM, Ken Blake wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Mar 2011 11:21:07 -0700, "relic"<> wrote:
>
>>
>> "Big Steel"<> wrote in message
>> news:...
>
>>> I use Nod32 on my laptop Vista, and it has gotten false positive hits.
>>
>> Do you know what triggered it? (I've used NOD32 for 11 years and haven't
>> seen one yet.)
>
>
> I haven't used NOD32 for as long as you, but it's been three or four
> years now. Not to say that a false positive isn't possible with any
> anti-virus, but I've never gotten one from NOD32 either.

I got the hits many years ago using Nod32, but it got a couple of them
over the years.

On Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:48:09 -0400, Yousuf Khan
<> wrote:


> Sounds good, but I still don't trust it as my primary security software,
> not after that completely stupid false positive.


Bear in mind that *no* anti-virus program is perfect, and a false
positive is always possible. If you get *many* of them, then your
anti-virus is poor, but I wouldn't stop using a product for a single
false positive. Microsoft Security Essentials is an excellent product.


> I'd rather not keep it loaded in real-time. I'll use the Avira for that.


Avira is also an excellent product. I don't think it's any better than
Microsoft Security Essentials, though.

On 3/26/2011 1:48 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
>
> Sounds good, but I still don't trust it as my primary security
> software, not after that completely stupid false positive. But I
> wouldn't mind using it as a scheduled task to scan for spyware.
> I'd rather not keep it loaded in real-time. I'll use the Avira
> for that, and use MSE occasionally. Is this possible to do with
> MSE keep it installed but not real-time?
>

Yes, you can turn MSE's realtime protection off. From the
Settings tab click Real-time Protection; you'll see you can
uncheck it.

hth
--
Chet <>
To reply remove SPAM NOT

On 3/26/2011 9:57 AM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
> Is anyone using Microsoft Security Essentials as their
> anti-virus/anti-spyware program? I used it briefly, within an hour it
> "discovered" a trojan inside one of my AVI video files. So I figured
> this program is about as dumb as algae, and I went back to Avira.
> However, false positives aside, I'd like to know how it performs: is
> it a resource hog, obtrusive, etc. I might go back to it eventually if
> people find it is not too obtrusive, and Microsoft fixes its
> brain-dead-ness.
>
> Microsoft Security Essentials vs. Windows Defender - Security Tips &
> Talk - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/securitytips...-defender.aspx
>
>
> Yousuf Khan


It's not too bad, ad of course it plays nice with Windows Defender
better than most others, but as you say, its detection is a tad
froggy/jumpy on some things.

One is better off with the "A" brand stuff (Avast, AVG, or Avira), AFAIC.

--
MFB

On 3/26/2011 3:55 PM, Ken Blake wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:48:09 -0400, Yousuf Khan
> <> wrote:
>
>
>> Sounds good, but I still don't trust it as my primary security software,
>> not after that completely stupid false positive.
>
>
> Bear in mind that *no* anti-virus program is perfect, and a false
> positive is always possible. If you get *many* of them, then your
> anti-virus is poor, but I wouldn't stop using a product for a single
> false positive. Microsoft Security Essentials is an excellent product.
>
>
>> I'd rather not keep it loaded in real-time. I'll use the Avira for that.
>
>
> Avira is also an excellent product. I don't think it's any better than
> Microsoft Security Essentials, though.


I was an AVG user for nearly 10 years, and I've occasionally run
across a few false positives with it as well as every other antivirus
I've ever used. The worst offender I ran across for this was F-Prot.

AVG, as noted by another poster (as well as several other techs I
know) has become bloated and sluggish in the same manner as Norton and
McAffee, so I switched to Avast!. Avast is a bit sluggish too, but
one can easily disable any of its "shield" (real-time) components, and
it offers excellent parameter fine tuning. The feature that finally
got me to switch over to it was its email scanner handles SSL
connections much easier and w/less hassle w/more email clients than
AVG's "127.0.0.1" 'two step shuffle' config process.

Overall, I tend to prefer a combination of:

Avast!, (active real time shields)
weekly 3AM Sunday disk scans,

Malwarebytes, (scheduled weekly, Sundays 5AM)

Windowe Defender (daily 2AM scans, & active real time)

Spybot Search & Destroy - manually run, tea timer disabled in
Vista/W7, but active on XP systems.

--
MFB

On 3/27/2011 3:07 AM, Flint wrote:
> On 3/26/2011 3:55 PM, Ken Blake wrote:
>> On Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:48:09 -0400, Yousuf Khan
>> <> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Sounds good, but I still don't trust it as my primary security software,
>>> not after that completely stupid false positive.
>>
>>
>> Bear in mind that *no* anti-virus program is perfect, and a false
>> positive is always possible. If you get *many* of them, then your
>> anti-virus is poor, but I wouldn't stop using a product for a single
>> false positive. Microsoft Security Essentials is an excellent product.
>>
>>
>>> I'd rather not keep it loaded in real-time. I'll use the Avira for that.
>>
>>
>> Avira is also an excellent product. I don't think it's any better than
>> Microsoft Security Essentials, though.
>
>
> I was an AVG user for nearly 10 years, and I've occasionally run across
> a few false positives with it as well as every other antivirus I've ever
> used. The worst offender I ran across for this was F-Prot.
>
> AVG, as noted by another poster (as well as several other techs I know)
> has become bloated and sluggish in the same manner as Norton and
> McAffee, so I switched to Avast!. Avast is a bit sluggish too, but one
> can easily disable any of its "shield" (real-time) components, and it
> offers excellent parameter fine tuning. The feature that finally got me
> to switch over to it was its email scanner handles SSL connections much
> easier and w/less hassle w/more email clients than AVG's "127.0.0.1"
> 'two step shuffle' config process.
>
> Overall, I tend to prefer a combination of:
>
> Avast!, (active real time shields)
> weekly 3AM Sunday disk scans,
>
> Malwarebytes, (scheduled weekly, Sundays 5AM)
>
> Windowe Defender (daily 2AM scans, & active real time)
>
> Spybot Search & Destroy - manually run, tea timer disabled in Vista/W7,
> but active on XP systems.
>

What? Are you serious? Why don't you toss the sink in there too?

On 26/03/2011 13:57, Yousuf Khan wrote:
> Is anyone using Microsoft Security Essentials as their
> anti-virus/anti-spyware program? I used it briefly, within an hour it
> "discovered" a trojan inside one of my AVI video files. So I figured
> this program is about as dumb as algae, and I went back to Avira.
> However, false positives aside, I'd like to know how it performs: is it
> a resource hog, obtrusive, etc. I might go back to it eventually if
> people find it is not too obtrusive, and Microsoft fixes its
> brain-dead-ness.
>
> Microsoft Security Essentials vs. Windows Defender - Security Tips &
> Talk - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/securitytips...-defender.aspx
>

Just been trying it on an old XPH machine. Seems OK, but I find it
annoying that I can't turn automatic updating off, and update only when
I want to. And that is an issue, because like all downloads from MS
sites, it takes an age to download the latest definitions.

--

Jeff

On 26/03/2011 3:46 PM, Big Steel wrote:
> On 3/26/2011 2:41 PM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
>> That's true, and I've gotten false positives on both AVG and Avira
>> before. But really, getting a false positive on what is obviously an AVI
>> video file, is a bit brain-dead. It has no business scanning something
>> like that at all.
>>
> You do know you can exclude that file type from the scan. But what's to
> say that the file type has been faked and it is a virus?

Most other anti-virals know to exclude these files by default. If a file
has been faked, then it won't run, it'll simply be considered a data file.

>
>> Secondly, if there is a false positive, how easy is it to get to the
>> developers to report the false positive? I've had good success with both
>> AVG and Avira in being able to easily upload the false positive file to
>> their email account or a website repository, and they've sent back
>> reports to me stating that they did indeed find it to be a false
>> positive, and they made alterations to the scanning signature right
>> away. That goes a long way for me towards establishing a good opinion of
>> the product -- everybody makes mistakes, but do you correct it quickly
>> and without hassles?
>>
>
> I don't think it's that big of a deal. It's certainly something I
> wouldn't give it much thought and haven't.

Well, I've done it before, and therefore I find it useful.

Yousuf Khan