Thread: MSE vs 3rd Party Antivirus Solutions

Hello all,

The following is just my opinion and preference based on my personal experience and available independent test lab data. I prefer a 3rd party solution to the inherent Microsoft Security Essentials solution (embedded in Windows 8) for the following reasons:

MSE is a "reactionary" antivirus solution and scores very poorly in the "prevention" category but scores well in the "removal" category. So, what does this mean in simple terms? Basically, it will do a great job of detecting and removing malware "after" it has become resident on your PC; however, the malware may have time to "do its damage" before those MSE routine scans find it.

Conversely, a good 3rd party antivirus may not score as well as MSE in the "removal" category but it certainly will score much higher in the "prevention" category. Specifically, a good 3rd party AV will flag/warn you if a website attempts to download malware to your PC and give you a chance to "exit" the site before being infected; whereas, MSE (alone) would not provide such a warning and it would deal with the malware after it has infected you PC.

In summary, you can either deal with malware before its deposited on your PC or you can deal with it after it has become resident; your choice! The following link will open/download a PDF document confirming that MSE ranks "dead last" in prevention (see page 4). Good luck!

http://www.av-test.org/fileadmin/pdf...ss_english.pdf

I'd cast my vote for Windows Defender. Especially if you wan't the least intrusive option. If you're really concerned about not having anything get through I'd suggest Kaspersky, but in all likeliness you'll be fine with WD.