PC Mag also found that a full scan on a heavily infected system took over an hour, while the same scan on a virus-free system took only 35 minutes. If you have a typical 500GB hard drive, though, that's hardly a blip on the radar. On the downside, PC Magazine reported that MSE takes up 110 MB of hard disk space. Reviewers' mileage varies, just as yours will. A quick scan took just 10 minutes in Krebs' test, and a full scan only 45 minutes. Brian Krebs of the Washington Post found that MSE consumed only 4 MB of RAM even during active scans for malware. The fact that both virus and spyware protection are rolled into one program is a plus in this regard. It is available in 25 languages and is efficiently designed to avoid hogging system resources, an important consideration in user adoption and regular use. Microsoft Security Essentials works on Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 (both 32 and 64-bit). How Good is Microsoft Security Essentials?Ĭan you dump both your current anti-virus and anti-spyware apps, in favor of Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE)? Reviewers are giving MSE favorable marks, but will it provide robust protection against all types of malware?
