Microsoft Security Essentials

I just found out that MS has a product called Microsoft Security Essentials - Free Antivirus for Windows, has anyone tried it?
If so:
Can it replace anti-virus, firewall, spam?
On my XP machines I have been using Avast, ZoneAlarm, and Spybot... http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/products/security-essentials

Edited by Yoldering 2011-12-16 7:38 PM

I've been using it as my default anti-virus since it was released in late 2009 with my Windows 7 machines.. I personally rather like it a lot. It does most things by itself, assuming you configure it as such. I've only had a weird false-positive with my Beyond Good and Evil game from Steam, but I set-up an exception. It can replace antivirus, as well as the capabilities present in Windows Defender. All of the operating systems supported my Security Essentials already have Windows Firewall..
However, I heard that people with Windows XP may need something a tad stronger.. MSE relies heavily on the operating system's built-in mechanisms as well, so users of Windows Vista and Windows 7 have a lot of the underlying frameworks for that..
Though I don't have anything here with XP except my XP Mode, so someone else may be able to fill in for me..
But yeah, it works great for me. I have it set to automatically do a daily scan, of which it scans for new definitions before doing. Microsoft updates the definitions at least 2-3 times per day..

I never really use Windows at home anymore so this is the first I have heard of it. Thanks for the info.

Anyone else?

Pros
Very light weight
Very small download
No fuss, no complication
It's from Microsoft
Free
Works very well on laptops and netbooks where slow HDD's and disk controllers struggle with Sophos, McAfee of the like
Simple UI
It has all of the functionality in Windows Defender, and turns off WD at install
No toolbars, no advertising, no craplets, unintrusive

Cons
It doesn't have the capabilities of other AV products, the industry benchmarks have it fairly near the bottom; but it is improving
The 12 MB download requires another 100+ MB download once installed, so it isn't as light weight as you think
Ties into Windows update, so if anything gets on your system to block that, it'll block MSE
It's not all that hard to get around; but that is improving
It doesn't replace the Windows firewall, it just turns it on; so if that is compromised before install it's useless; Pre-Vista SP1's firewall is pretty weak and uni-directional. Vista/7's is a little better - do a reset to default on the firewall and you'll be as protected as you can
I have seen plenty of less high profile malware waltz onto systems with MSE installed, it is reasonable with the high profile players but seems to lack heuristic scanning so its light weight isn't always a blessing as a result.
I find its ability to integrate with Outlook rather weak, which is surprising. I've never once seen it popup and say that the email that just came in contains a virus. Copy it to the desktop however and it will do it.

For note Windows Defender is not an AV program, it's a targeted malware scanner with some protection tools for IE.

If you're doing light surfing, it's good. If you can't cope with how other AV slows down your netbook its good. If you're surfing the underground of the internet and exposing your system to a whole world of malware... probably not.

Woh, C:Amie, I did not know that. Thanks for the info, I won't be using Outlook 2010 then for my Hotmail..

I use Avast (free) and Comodo Firewall (again, free) with Lavasoft Ad-Aware (and again, free) and have not had a single virus since about 2004. (And I download a lot of nefarious things...) So I'm happy and wouldn't want the MS Security Essentials.

Hotmail has integrated AV screening at the Microsoft end anyway, so I wouldn't be concerned about that.