Microsoft Security Essentials is out -FINAL-

[IgnoreThisPlox]

Been out for a few days, has anyone used it?

I'm using it on my Win7 tablet and it works pretty well, not being a CPU hog and it runs quiet without many pop ups.
http://www.microsoft.com/Security_essentials/

[pizzahut]

I wonder, is this as good as the established free third-party AV programs, like Avira, AVG, Avast?

[richard.eid]

I liked Windows Defender, but was annoyed by some aspects of it. So far MSE has taken care of those annoyances for me. I hear that it's basically what you got with OneCare's anti-malware protection, so if you're looking for reviews of it, search for that.

If you're like me and like to see which Windows Updates are available and not just have the system automatically do it, then you'll be happy with the fact that MSE downloads the updates on its own and you don't see definition updates coming through Windows Update anymore like how you see it with defender. That was one of my biggest gripes with it, but I guess that's my own fault.

Anyway, in case you haven't guessed, it replaces/merges with Windows Defender and you won't have both running side-by-side, which is how it should be, but that's also a benefit in case you care about the number of processes running on your PC. It's a very non-intrusive piece of anti-virus software that's hard to come by anymore.

Plus, it's free anti-virus from Microsoft. I guess I'll update my opinion if I ever get a virus. It'll probably be a while, like never.