"Security Essential" Is It Really Essential ???

Microsoft has released “security software” named Microsoft Security Essentials (wonder if they will eventually make it essential!!) few months back. The MS Essential isn’t really a security protection software as it’s just a free antivirus, there is no firewall (considering Windows firewall’s basic functionalities, they should have added one with a little more control for the user), there is no web protection (considering most systems are used online nowadays) & no email scan (who on earth doesn’t use email now).

I am being a bit mean expecting MS should have added the above features considering its a freeware ( at least right now) but I honestly wonder why MS launched such a product in the first place? There isn’t a dearth of players who manufacture the Security solution and most of the problems that arise are because MS products are found vulnerable to so many attacks. The frequency with which the MS updates are released makes me think why MS released a finished product in the first place, they could have kept it Beta version like Gmail who kept Gmail as beta for years after its launch?

I don’t understand that MS on one hand makes products which are vulnerable and then launches an antivirus to tackle such attacks. Yes, being a freeware is great but can MS make it a shareware at a later stage? This is the view that I do not support. MS as an OS developer should hot make any products that it can charge the customers again because it itself failed to plug loopholes in its own products!

I fully support MS on one point. It as an OS manufacturer would have a much better view on the loopholes it left open unknowingly which are being exploited. That’s how far I can go with supporting the software. It’s been decades we all have been using the Windows OS, how many of us take it for granted that the OS will crash every other time & that after every few weeks the system will download so called security patches. No doubt Windows has changed the computing lookout but is it what every one of us is really comfortable with? I am quite sceptical of the Security Essential being a product that would really deliver the goods. Not that I don’t trust the expertise of MS but the commitment a multi-billion organization will provide to a free-ware product.

I am also quite wary of the fact that other security product manufacturers who charge us every year to renew the software licenses would just sit back and appreciate MS efforts of providing free-wares. We all have some point or the other used software such as AVG & Zone Alarm which do offer quite basic facilities for their freeware. The point is it does cost to continue research detecting, neutralizing & preventing the attacks. I don’t see an organization like MS doing charity work by offering the Security product for free forever unless it is either useless or there is some business motives behind the same. I would have foreseen a possibility that the product might have been a bundle within the Windows setup, but with the recent verdict by EU on its integrated browser I don’t think MS will take such a step. I would like to stick to my current security software till things become a bit clearer. Does security software really prevent a determined attacker to gain access after all??

-Anupam

Image courtesy: microsoft.com