Microsoft Overhauls Free Antivirus Software

Without fanfare, on Thursday Microsoft released version 2 of its Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) antivirus software. The software is free for individuals and small businesses with up to 10 PCs.

The new version of the software, which recently went through a four-month beta program, now has an overhauled heuristic antivirus scanning engine, integration with Windows Firewall, and network traffic inspection for Windows Vista and 7 -- but not XP -- reported Ars Technica.
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Instead of spending money on more security infrastructure for your virtual environment, Solera's V2P Tap promises to regenerate the virtual traffic to your existing security infrastructure, thereby protecting your investment.

On Thursday, Microsoft also announced that the not-free Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 -- aimed at larger corporate users -- would be available from January 1, 2011. Forefront offers similar functionality to MSE, as well as centralized administration.

According to internal Microsoft research, 80% of PC users in the United States think their antivirus software is up to date. But in reality -- thanks to outdated signatures or lapsed trials -- only about 40% of Windows users are employing up-to-date antivirus software.

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Why, then, wasn't there more fanfare for the latest version of a free antivirus program that's earned plaudits? The United Kingdom's PC Pro magazine said the stealth release might have to do with the software looking less like its previous, standalone antivirus scanner incarnation, and more like the security software offered by the likes of Symantec and McAfee. With MSE 2, according to PC Pro, "users are now asked whether they want to turn on the Windows Firewall during installation, dragging Security Essentials closer to becoming a full-fledged security suite."

Microsoft has recently come under fire from some antivirus firms for apparently muscling onto their turf. In November, after Microsoft began automatically installing MSE onto PCs that lacked antivirus software, Trend Micro slammed Microsoft on competitive grounds.

In a similar vein, Panda Software blogged that Microsoft was threatening PC users by creating an antivirus monoculture. According to Panda, "Microsoft should offer the complete portfolio of more advanced and secure alternatives of free antivirus products and time-limited versions of paid security suites, allowing users to choose any of them from the Optional Windows/Microsoft Update." Microsoft doesn't appear to have pursued this strategy.

Interestingly, Microsoft's release of MSE 2 comes on the heels of a new study from German AV vendor Avira, which found widespread dissatisfaction with antivirus. According to the survey of more than 9,000 Avira users, 25% of antivirus users admit to pulling the plug on their antivirus software -- at least temporarily -- because it appeared to be slowing their computer. Furthermore, nearly two-thirds of respondents have tried multiple security products on their PC in the past year.

Avira AntiVir Personal: Great Malware Protection

Avira AntiVir Personal ranked second in our late 2010 roundup of free antivirus products. AntiVir did a great job at detecting and blocking malware.
AntiVir Personal is nearly identical to its paid counterpart, AntiVir Premium 2010: Both have nearly identical interfaces and installation processes, so the real difference between them is the feature set.
The Status tab gives a basic overview of whether you're protected and up-to-date, though it doesn't really give too much detail. Most buttons are not labeled, and the button icons are not always immediately detectable, so you'll have find them for a tooltip describing what they do. Avira is a German import, and some of the wording in dialog boxes feels awkwardly translated. The overall feeling I got from AntiVir Personal's interface is that, while it's serviceable, it feels geared toward more advanced PC users.
Avira put up very good scores for malware detection. AntiVir Personal detected 99 percent of malware samples in scanner-based detection tests that predominantly rely on malware signature files, which was one of the better showings in this test among the free antivirus products we tested. And in the blocking of actual, real-world malware attacks, AntiVir personal completely blocked 80 percent of attacks, which puts it slightly above the average of the products we tested. It partially blocked an additional 5 percent of attacks.
Avira also but up decent scores for malware cleanup. It detected all infections on the test system, and was successful in removing all active components of an attack 70 percent of the time (right around average), and removed all malware components 30 percent of the time (also about average).
On the negative side, AntiVir Personal, along with Comodo's free Internet Security Premium, had the most false positives--six--of the free antivirus products we looked at. As a percentage, this number is still low--it was .004 percent of files scanned, and they were all non-operating-system files, but any false positive can be a hassle. That said, only one free product we tested--Avast Free Antivirus--achieved a perfect false positive score.
AntiVir Personal's scan speeds were impressive as well--it completed an on-demand scan of 4.5GB of data in 87 seconds, the best finish of the free antivirus products we looked at. Its on-access scans were also quite fast: It finished the test in 4 minutes, 7 seconds, well below the average time of 2 minutes, 50 seconds. The on-access scan is a good indicator of how quickly an antivirus program will be able to scan files for malware as they're opened or saved to disk. In addition, AntiVir Personal's impact on overall system performance was low, and it added a mere 2.5 seconds to system startup in our tests--the average product added over 4 seconds to startup time.
AntiVir Personal, like Avira's other products, has been a strong contender in the past, and this latest version continues that trend. But we'd like to see Avira make some improvements to its user interface.