A pre-beta version of Microsoft Security Essentials (codenamed Morro) was leaked by Somalian pirates someone. As usual, I took it out for a test… :)

Microsoft Security Essentials is Microsoft’s free anti-virus solution – an indispensible app which should have been bundled since a long time with Windows like Windows Firewall (but won’t be because of the EU).
MSE will launch around the same date as Windows 7. A public beta of MSE will be available on 23rd June to the first 75,000 downloaders. What I’m testing is a pre-beta build, so a couple more features may be added at launch. Download links are on JCXP.net.

The setup file of MSE is just 5MB (it doesn’t come with definitions). Installation took a couple of seconds with no restart required.

MSE also comes with a built-in antispyware, which automatically turns off Windows Defender to prevent conflicts (actually MSE is supposed to replace Windows Defender).
It took around 2 mins to download all the updates – thanks to Akamai! ;)

MSE is a very basic anti-virus app – there are not many settings to customize. Real-time protection, option to scan archives & removable drives, create restore points and that’s it. So I started straight away with a scan.

Scan was relatively fast, with CPU usage being equal if not less than other anti-virus apps… but then it detected a virus! :| Now, that’s worrying… because I never installed any anti-virus on Windows 7.

Turned out the virus is actually not a virus. :)

Konboot is a boot disc which allows you to bypass the password of a system (Windows & Linux) – obviously a potential threat according to any anti-virus! :P
Note: I ran the same scan on Eset Nod32, & it took twice more time, much more CPU usage (around 80%+) and it did detect Konboot as a virus.

Memory usage is 4MB + 30MB for the anti-spyware. But I was astounded with the overall resource usage. It’s a fact that all anti-viruses slow down your computer, causing lags & slower start-ups but MSE? Nope, not at all – I saw absolutely no difference in speed when extracting archives & installing! It’s almost as if it’s not there!

MSE is free and as such it comes with some restrictions. You cannot prevent MSE from sending information to Microsoft Spynet concerning viruses detected & where it came from. But I suppose this information will actually help Microsoft in tackling virus outbreaks faster. Other short-comings include no heuristics or malicious activity detection, no email protection, no boot/startup protection, no web access protection & no antispam.

So?
Overall I’m impressed with Microsoft Security Essentials with especially with no loss in performance. But the ultimate test will be the detection rate of the engine. & if it turns out to be pretty effective… & add the fact that it’s FREE - Norton, McAfee, Eset, Panda, Kaspersky and the rest definitely have a cause for worry. :)