Switched to MSE

Been using NIS forever now... 2010/2011/2012b. Tried 360 v5 too.
But man, MSE uses less resources than them, even if websites say otherwise.
It's just... faster. I don't care about numbers in benchmarks. It is definitely faster. MSE uses about 70mb of memory or so.... while NIS said it was only using 10mb. Odd. But I look at the percentage memory used, they are about the same or Norton is actually higher. Which means... Norton is hiding the memory somewhere. I don't know where..but it is.

Everything is just faster. I can run a scan with mse and barely feel it. NIS when I would run a scan the entire block would feel it. After I boot up windows NIS keeps doing stuff for a while... MSE isn't booted all the way on startup as NIS is, but it loads up quickly after I get into windows and doesn't keep doing stuff.

I used to be a huge proponent of MSE...
But man.. what's up with this green castle. It's ugly as heck. Any way to change it?

Part of me wishes MSE had an intrusion protection thing for Firefox like NIS did... but let's face it... i haven't gotten a virus in forever and I don't really need an av any way so whatever.

 

Yes my MSE uses about 60-70MB. I have certain folders disabled from being scanned.

I don't know how to change the green castle.

I'm thinking of uninstalling MSE again and just going without an antivirus. Seems silly to keep one.

Yes my MSE uses about 60-70MB. I have certain folders disabled from being scanned.

I don't know how to change the green castle.

I'm thinking of uninstalling MSE again and just going without an antivirus. Seems silly to keep one.

 

i know wat u mean...but i feel like i need something. having just mse is annoying me because i feel like i might as well have full protection from like nis 2011. but having my system boot up without it being slow for a minute or two is so nice. i just wish they increased the protection n stuff os mse....

 

You likely don't need more protection than what MSE provides.

I suggest using EMET And putting UAC to Default/Max. That's plenty unless you've pissed off a hacker somewhere.

 

na tbh i dont need any av... it's just the placebo effect of it really.
that's why i'm saying i might as well have a full blown suite u know?
i know mse has more than enough...... but.... doesn't make me feel as....satisfied..as nis 2011...lol.
ihate usc n find it useless..... whats' emet?

 

Whatever works for you. They're both legitimate approaches to security.

I believe NIS is pay-only? You may give Comodo a try as it provies HIPS + Firewall for free. They're also have a "1 year free" special for their Comodo Professional package, which includes firewall, hips, and a realtime antivirus.

 

ya i just use their 90-day trials hehe

 

Well I'm using Comodo right now and it's very resource-light. I have most internet-facing applications running in a sandbox and it's working very well. I'd suggest giving it a try.

 

i'll see abt it... thx man

 

couldn't do it. back to nis2011. that green castle man..haha. reminds me of opera... i loved it, just like mse. but there's just something about it that's...off. it didn't sit right. seeing the ugly norton box in my tray with the green check mark... makes me feel good. weird... but ya.

 

I've got the green castle off the taskbar, so I don't have to look at it unless I click the arrow to show the rest of the icons.

 

I have MSE on my taskbar and pinned as well. Having SAS on my taskbar saved my once a few years ago... it was the only way I could launch it.

 

I like the icon of MSE. But yeah, if you need AV software (which for many consumers may be debatable), MSE is the way to go.

 

I just switched to MSE also. I was running SAS and Avira so it's definitely lighter and quicker at boot.

 

I switched from MSE to Avira. MSE made my system feel sluggish during it's definition updates, extraction of zip files was slower with MSE. Update frequency was inconsistent with MSE.

MSE's taskbar icon has no right click options. There is no way to disable the AV (when installing GPU drivers) in a quick way without the need to click multiple times.

 

MSE since day 1, never looking back. Why the worries? FF and WOT would do fine, plus common sense and you are all set

cheers ...

 

Ya I'm with you... I mean heck, I don't even need an av. It's just that...feeling, you know? And MSE wasn't doing it for me. But it is lighter and better... I just wish they would put Windows Firewall/defender built into it rather than separate, throw in a browser extension, and change the bloody tray icon...and then it will have everything I need. hehe

 

I've been pleased with MSE. I used to run AVG Free, but it was such a dog. I couldn't access a download until maybe 20 seconds after download, because AVG was still scanning. MSE does scan, but it's hardly more than a few seconds. I do run a scheduled full scan, and it feels pretty transparent performance-wise.

 

are there any real differences between MSE and avast? a lot of people here seem to really support MSE.

 

Depends on personal preference.
Avast has more options than MSE, but the latter integrates better into Windows.
Overall, you cannot go wrong with either.

 

well in university getting malware from classmate's USB sticks when doing group projects was a big issue. MSE dosent seem to be effective at it, where else Avira is. I use both.

 

@TinaGadwdani:

you're doing it wrong if you're actually scanning, or updating on your own. MSE is about setting it and forgetting it.

so you measure the performance by manual scanning? OMG LOL! What are we in the 1990s? (to quote someone you kn ow).


u want a real av? get one from a company who does not depend on the existence of viruses for it's own existence (contradicting goals: fighting viruses kills their business).

and btw, windows is by now about the most secure os in existence. i know that's hard to understand who, OMG LOL! is still in the 1990s.

 

Gonna have to say that Linux is the most secure OS. There's no competing with its security features. Package management, separation of user and administrator, and an open source system that allows for bugs to be fixed immediately.

Honestly, there's just no way. Windows 7 can be properly configured to be nearly as secure but package management is difficult to replicate. I like filehippo for it.

 

package management doesn't matter for security.

separation of user and administrator is UAC. fixes are rather instant, too.

linux is no hacker target, which makes it secure for the ordinary user. but it's not a secure by default os. as one can see with android, which has tons of exploits to root, and tons of spyware by now. that's how linux acts when it's there for the "ordinary user".

osx being based on linux and being inherently insecure shows the same.

linux isn't magic. it's opensourceness isn't magic, too. it might help to take itself out of the causal hacker focus. but i've seen tons of breached linux systems in the wild, at the places where there is valuable info for hackers (web servers, company servers, etc).

both windows and linux by default are VERY secure (not perfect, both of them). what's on top of that can make or break it. (and what's in front of them, of coursE)

 

Package management means two things:

1) Verified download. You know where you're getting it from and it's a trusted source.
2) Consistent updates.

Android is not your typical linux distro. It's a Java HM running in linux. Its exploits are based on poor security methods -- not linux exploits.

OSX is absolutely not inherently insecure. It's starting to get malware but you literally have to enter a password to install the virus.

I'm not saying linux is impenetrable, I'm saying that in terms of PERSONAL security (not an attack by a hacker but an automated malicious code) it's above Windows.

I do think that Windows does a lot more for its users in terms of security. It provides more software and enhancements and support than any other OS and you can configure it to be incredibly secure.

 

There have been a few cases where the repos themselves have been hacked; yes you know where it came from but what good is that if the source is breached? However your second point mostly covers this, since the affected repos are taken down asap and very few (if any) people are affected - someone is always watching major linux distros / package svns / ect due to the open source nature.

There was an updated driveby malware I saw on OSX a week ago that actually did not require a password (still required an idiot).

2 big reasons that linux is more secure: windows has a massive userbase so it just makes more sense to target the joes who use it, and 2) M.A.D. (cold war term, google!). Unless you are attacking a server you really can't be sure what can of worms you'll open by risking an attack on a linux client, the guy could have a payload of his own dormant and waiting for him to fire. It just isn't worth the risk or time spent making an exploit most of the time.

err, back on topic... @TinaGadwani so MSE takes 5 seconds to update its def file, while NOD takes 2? And the default settings in MSE limit CPU usage during a scan to 50%, NOD does not throttle at all that I'm aware of (this can be a bad thing). And after several other companies free products straight up fubar'd some people's computers, it's really not a surprise that MSE would be gaining popularity is it? When was the last time you heard of an MS security update deleting a required system dll?

 

The driveby malware not requiring a password was the press being stupid. It still does require it. There are however multiple viruses that don't need UAC permissions to run.

 

well, i download from the product vendors. so i know where i'm getting them. most of my apps do auto-updates so that's no issue, too (most trough windows update hrr hrr.. like if you use linux-only apps i use mostly microsoft apps. they get their updates).

it shows the typical problem: a secure os does not mean anything.

not true anymore btw (it just got "fixed" to not need a password anymore).
ans osx is absolutely inherently insecure. as is ios (same code base for the os). or how do all the jailbreaks work? why does osx always get p0wned in the first minutes of a contest?

no. as most attacks don't need any security on the system. as long as users click random things in the web, all can kill user data (not os data)

and their codebase got several times completely rewritten to have basic security fixes not possible trough the compiler (and most of their stuff is now written in .net which is much more secure by default). buffer overruns are not a job of the programmer to fix anymore in microsoft world. in the typical c (programming language) world of linux (kernel code is still completely assembly and c, both don't do ANYTHING for security in their compiler), it's 100% programmers job. not automated, not "impossible by design".

that's why windows is the most secure os by now. it doesn't rely on programmers to do the security part. recompiling the os with the newer compilers showed up thousands of buffer overflow issues that got fixed moving from xp to vista. etc.

linux still is mostly old code with patches. and very old languages which aren't designed with nowadays knowledge in mind. that is a dorming issue of HUGE impact one day.


but anyways, nothing of those matters, as most exploits don't need any system privileges by now. they need user space privileges, so they can attack user files, put into the users autostart, and send data trough users apps (so no firewall can detect them).

and that's why people still need antivirus: not to protect the system. to protect themselves and their data.

 

Avast seems to be doing really well in the ondemand and proactive tests.

MSE is OK

They all suck just a little bit

AV-Comparatives - Independent Tests of Anti-Virus Software - Detection Tests

 

No operating system is secure unless you are the one coding it and and you are freaking sure the compiler doesn't add a backdoor.

Linux is mostly secure because you trust the distribution's repo, and usually people who use Linux is slightly more competent and tech savy then the rest of the demographics also most malware authors don't target the small marketshare. Also Security Patches are pushed down once vulnerability is detected.

OS X used to be secure because most malware authors don't target the small marketshare. But now because of Apple Excellent Marketing department it isn't small anymore. Plus Apple marketing used "Idiot proof" to attract the idiot part of the demographic (They are a quick bunch to pull out their wallet and download everything in iSight). Plus Apple Patching is not as regular and given high priority it only needs to look good to sell. The OS is only as secure as the weakest interface. Any vulnerabilities in their services or xorg running as root exposes the machine to malware.

Windows is mostly secure because Microsoft got bashed many times on security for business to trust and use their products they had to do something. They do get regular patches, they tried to stop users from shooting themselves in the foot by introducing UAC unfortunately there is still no fool proof patch for user's stupidity.

In conclusion any tech savy user will be able to use any of the above OS with good security.

 

the os' of today (excluding osx) are rather good at saving themselves (uac and similar stuff).

they don't care, though, about your user data. so any virus can still delete all mp3s in your user folder, or all your jpgs. for that, no rights beyond what the user has, are needed. there, most os' don't care at all (not their problem per se).

so for that, antivirus is right now the best solution.

other than that, well, one can try to fix the user.. but, not really..

 

It's not that it's "not their problem" it would just be ridiculous to prompt the user for permissions just to open an .mp3

haven't read Weinter's post

kinda dont want to tonight lol tomorrow

 

The rule is that the service should take the minimum possible permission required to do a specific task.