Microsoft Security Essentials good but not enough to shake up rivals

According to Evans, MSE uses a higher amount of heuristic detection techniques than Live OneCare i.e. the software studies the behaviour of suspicious applications and then reports back to a central server to check the behaviour against that of known malware.

MSE, which has achieved good results in independent tests from organisations such as AV Comparatives and West Coast Labs, also "compares favourably" with commercial security suites, Microsoft said.

Unlike commercial security suites, MSE's Dynamic Signature Service technology uses the most recent virus definitions to check applications for risks, rather than relying on the last batch of definitions downloaded, the company said.

MSE also emulates programs before they complete their execution, and looks for suspicious behaviour such as carrying out operations without user permission. If a program is behaving suspiciously, MSE will ping the Dynamic Signature Service to see whether the program should be submitted for analysis or terminated.

The software also addresses PC users' concerns of nagware as Microsoft has promised that MSE has been "designed to run quietly in the background alerting the user only when there is an action for them to take."

Most importantly, unlike branded anti-virus softwares, MSE does not hog too much memory and offers a performance boost because it is not a "big suite."

In contrast to other tools, MSE requires a minimum of just 256MB memory and a 500MHz processor on an XP system, and 1GB memory and a 1GHz processor for Vista or Windows 7, according to Microsoft. "We wanted it to be capable of running on as many machines as possible, and it runs quietly and silently without any fuss. You just install it and forget it," Evans said.

Meanwhile, MSE's launch has been welcomed by branded anti-virus makers such as Symantec, McAfee, Kaspersky, Trend Micro, AVG and Alwil Avast with cautious optimism.

"The security industry has moved on from the product Microsoft is launching," said Con Mallon, Symantec's marketing director. "Unique malware and social engineering fly under the radar of the traditional signature based technology employed by free security tools such as Microsoft's."

"We believe the false sense of security provided by this tool is almost as dangerous as having no security at all," Mallon cautioned, adding that PCs using only MSE are vulnerable to phishing attacks as MSE's Dynamic Signature Service technology is vulnerable against a malicious website that offers each visitor their own personalised Trojan.

"It (MSE) is a stripped down version of their old OneCare product which was poorly rated by industry experts and users alike," a Symantec spokesperson said, commenting on the release of the software. "From a security perspective, this Microsoft tool offers reduced defences at a critical point in the battle against cyber crime."

"I do not think its (MSE) a bad thing. It's only a bad thing if people think that's all they need to do," said Roger Thompson, chief research officer for AVG, which offers free as well as paid-for versions of anti-virus software by the same name. "The danger is if users think that they can just get by with the Microsoft tool."