New v2 of Microsoft Security Essentials brings new features, makes improvements
December 27, 2010 39
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Reviewed by dotTech, and used by many, Microsoft Security Essentials is a terrific product created by Microsoft to help address the ever growing malware issue. Being fairly new, until yesterday MSE was only v1; now, Microsoft has released v2 of MSE, adding few features and making improvements.
Although Microsoft seems to have kept fairly quiet about the update – I cannot even find an official announcement nor an official changelog – I have been able to successfully update to v2 of MSE and can verify that it has indeed been released.
While there seems to be no official changelog available, the Help file of MSE v2 lists the following changes made in v2:
This version of Microsoft® Security Essentials includes the following new features and enhancements to better help protect your computer from threats:
- Windows Firewall integration. Security Essentials setup enables you to turn on or off Windows Firewall.
- Network Inspection System. This feature enhances real-time protection by inspecting network traffic to help proactively block exploitation of known network-based vulnerabilities.
- New and improved protection engine. The updated engine offers enhanced detection and cleanup capabilities with better performance.
These features are described in more detail in the following sections.
- Windows Firewall integration
- Windows Firewall can help prevent attackers or malicious software from gaining access to your computer through the Internet or a network. Now when you install Security Essentials, the installation wizard verifies that Windows Firewall is turned on. If you have intentionally turned off Windows Firewall, you can avoid turning it on by clearing a check box. You can change your Windows Firewall settings at any time via the System and Security settings in Control Panel.
- Network Inspection System
- Attackers are increasingly carrying out network-based attacks against exposed vulnerabilities before software vendors can develop and distribute security updates. Studies of vulnerabilities show that it can take a month or longer from the time of an initial attack report before a suitable security update is developed, tested, and released. This gap in protection leaves many computers vulnerable to attacks and exploitation for a substantial period of time. Network Inspection System works with real-time protection to better protect you against network-based attacks by greatly reducing the timespan between vulnerability disclosures and update deployment from weeks to a few hours.
- Award-winning protection engine
- Under the hood of Security Essentials is its award-winning protection engine that is updated regularly. The engine is backed by a team of antimalware researchers from the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, providing responses to the latest malware threats 24 hours a day.
Furthermore, although the Help file does not state it, it looks like MSE now also includes a “behavior monitor” (presumably a behavior blocker):
Even at v1 MSE performed extremely well as an anti-malware program; without a doubt v2 makes it that much better. It will definitely be an interesting comparison pitting MSE v2 against avast!, AVG, and Avira the next time I update the comparison article.
It seems like at this time there is no update of MSE available from MSE itself or Windows Update; if you already have MSE installed you need to download v2 manually and manually upgrade. You can download MSE v2 from the following links:
Version reviewed: v2.0.657.0
Supported OS: Windows XP/Vista/Win7
Download size: 7.5-9.5 MB, depending on if you get 32-bit or 64-bit version
Thanks acr, Troll, and Samuel!
@Ashraf, @janetb: Not sure why it’s such a secret. It’s clearly not a beta since I was running the beta…I’ll see what I can dig up though.
@Matt:
Thanks for that, Matt. I left OA running as is and didn’t bother with the Windows firewall at all..been like that since I installed the MSE upgrade..but I did follow the suggestions made by “acr” above and my system is now running fine..better, in fact, than it was before!
Overall the speed has increased and it’s nearly like it was when I first bought it a few couple of years ago!
Overall..I’m happy the ways things are going right now..so hopefully there shouldn’t be anymore issues, as I turned off/stopped SAS from auto starting at boot-up..as well as tell everything else to ignore each other..and the system is now flying!
Thanks once again for the input.
Dan
hmmm if I’m not wrong MSE doesn’t provide any EMAIL and antiPHISHING protection unlike AVAST FREE EDITION and its detection rate is much lower when compared to both AVIRA and AVAST….right?
So everything considered, I think that MSE could be good as ON DEMAND MALWARE SCANNER only along with EMSISOFT ANTIMALWARE.
What do you make of it, ASHRAF?
@Giovanni: I think I have already addressed your concerns in – drum roll please – http://dottech.org/freeware-reviews/14151. =P
Does MSE 2 automatically delete files when it has a suspicious one or does it give you a choice of what to do? I like a program that gives me an option of what to do?
Thanks
@Johnd: You can tell it to automatically “Delete”, “Quarantine”, or as you want, “Recommend Action”. For two lower level risks, you can also tell it to “allow” the program/risk. FWIW, it has four threat/alert levels: Severe, High, Medium and Low. The “Allow” is for the bottom two lesser threat levels, of course.
@Clodmore: Thanks. However, I like my antivirus/malware program to ask me on everything with an ignore or quarantine/delete at time of finding it. I don’t like anything automatic. I am unsure on your answer if MSE2 does this or does it take action based on how MSE2 perceives the risk to be?
Thanks
BTW how do people get others names to appear bold and blue when they are replying to someone?
@Johnd:
Click on the blue “Reply to comment” at the lower left of the comment to which you would like to reply….:-)….
@Johnd: You can set it so it will ask on everything. Sorry if I didn’t make that clear.
On Tweakguides.com there are some updated recommendations for configuring the new real-time protection options in MSE. On the first page at the moment.
Have a nice day,
Jacal
@Ashraf: Well, after trying to live without AVG and using only MSE2 for two days, I am back to AVG. Maybe something was set wrong by me with MSE2 but booting up my Win7 home 2GB laptop took too long, maybe three minutes.
Removed it and went back to AVG, removed MSE2 and all’s well now, faster boot up and all. 2 mins.
just saying…
@Rob: Avira is rubbish, NOD32 x64 is best in it’s class… small memory imprint, fast, best virus definition database and best virus kill rate.
MSE v2.0 is pretty good, can’t complain, it’s free and does the job well.
only MSE comes from the company which makes windows!
The same OS that is riddled with security vulnerabilities hackers frequently exploit. That doesn’t bother you?