While many people prefer using third-party programs that offer slightly higher levels of protection and can detect viruses that Microsoft simply doesn’t even know about or cannot implement a feature that would not conflict with the system, the free antivirus program from the company is still better than nothing. It won’t outperform the best antivirus solutions out there, but you should not disregard it completely especially if you are not planning to purchase a premium antivirus.
The program is designed to quickly scan the system for various viruses and malware that may infect your PC. It can scan either the whole system or separate parts and folders. You can manually set a schedule and enjoy a variety of other useful functions.
Some of the features
Security Essentials is, as the name suggests, a kit of components that work together to provide protection from some of the most common security threats out there. There are various components and features that make protection stronger:
– Designed specifically for Windows systems and works beautifully on both Win7 and Vista.
– Protects from viruses and malware that are most common on the internet.
– Microsoft ensured that the whole kit is as easy-to-use as possible allowing casual users to quickly adapt to the controls of the center.
– You can manually include and exclude files from the scanning process.
– You can manually adjust the amount of computational power dedicated to the protection and active scanning.
– MSE comes with a firewall that will filter out some of the incoming threats that you may encounter.
– All important events are stored in the history report that you can access at any moment.
– The security center is also a great tool to create recovery points to revert some of the critical changes to the system.
The main takeaway
Microsoft has been focused on tweaking its flagship product for decades and did not care to release its own antivirus solution allowing many companies like Kaspersky Lab and Norton to release powerful antivirus software that still has higher levels of protection and virus detection compared to the solutions produced by Microsoft.
Nevertheless, MSE is a flexible tool that will keep your PC protected from most common cyber attacks and malware. If you don’t want to spend a couple of hundred bucks on a program that will grant you the best protection possible, MSE is a good basic solution that works quite well.
