A Quick Look At Microsoft Security Essentials Free Antivirus Software

Damien — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:49:59 +0000

Microsoft has recently announced that they will be releasing a free anti-virus software for their Windows platform. The free software, named Windows Security Essentials (previously codenamed “Morro”) would be available by the end of 2009 at the latest, but for those enthusiasts who can’t wait for the official release, the beta version is already available for download, though it is only available on a limited basis (capped to 75K download and available only for US, Israel, China and Brazil users).

To download the beta version of Microsoft Security Essentials, you need to first login to your Windows Live account and complete a survey. Once that is done, you will be able to download the respective software for your Windows version (Win XP or Vista/7).

At MakeTechEasier, we will take you through the software and show you what to expect from this yet another Microsoft product.

Simple Interface

One thing that anyone will notice immediately after the installation is that it is simple in design and user interface. You don’t find plenty of fanciful icons or even several levels deep of tab menu. All you find is only a simple window with some simple, but important options.

There are four main tabs on the window: Home, Update, History and Settings.

Home is where you view the current status while the Update tab show you the last virus definition update time. The History tab shows a list of all the virus detected on your computer and the actions taken to combat the virus. Lastly, the Settings tab contains the common configuration options found in almost every anti-virus software, including scheduling regular scan, actions to take when viruses are detected, scan files and attachments as they are downloaded etc.

Low on Memory Resources

I have tried several anti-virus software, both paid and free, on my Windows over the years and there is always one thing in common: The CPU and memory usage spike up whenever I run a full scan of the computer. When I test-drive with Microsoft Security Essentials on Windows 7, I was surprised that while scanning my hard disk, it didn’t cause my other applications to hang. I am pretty impressed by the low memory usage and how it can get things done without causing the whole system to hang.

Screenshots tour:

After Thoughts

With the bitDefender firewal, User Account Controll and now the anti-virus software, it seems that Microsoft is making a serious attempt to combat the all securities issues that are troubling them all this while. While this won’t stop hackers from developing new viruses, it does make the system slightly harder to crack.

What other anti-virus software do you think is worth the mention here? Shout it out in the comments.

A Quick Look At Microsoft Security Essentials Free Antivirus Software originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Make Review And Make Friends With Ciao

Jeffry Thurana — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:52:58 +0000

A wise man once said that we are not living in the “information” era anymore. We are living in the “filtering the information” era. We are bombarded by the over bloated information available out there that it becomes annoyingly difficult for us to sort the good from the bad.

That’s why community-based review sites like Digg and del.icio.us become very popular. The logic is simple: the best judge to pick worth knowing information out there is opinion from the mass. Our opinion.

So, if you are the kind of person who loves to share your opinion to the world, maybe this one site can be one of your favorites. It’s called Ciao and it specialize on product review.

Reviews with a twist

Basically, this free service wanted to be one of your references to find product reviews. Everytime you are thinking of buying something, you go here and look for reviews. But Ciao is not your ordinary product review site. It sort of a mix from Digg, Facebook and Adsense. Users are also encouraged to do their product reviews.

After the registration process, you can start reviewing ANY product available out there; from music albums to high tech mouth watering laptops, from books to softwares. Nothing too fancy, a short 100-200 words opinion on something would be fine. (They even accept 10-20 words quick review!) Note: They require you to review the things that you yourself use and not writing fictional review.

To write a review, use the menu My Content –> Write a new review, then use the search box to find product to review. Click the envelope icon to start writing.

As an incentive to encourage people to do this, Ciao will pay user for each positive comment given to the review. They also have somekind of competition to choose the best reviews each month and split US$ 2,000 prize among the winners.

The twist which differs Ciao from other review site is that it also encourages you to invite your friends and also make friends with existing Ciao members – sort of building a friendship network like FaceBook or MySpace.

The future of Ciao

In general, Ciao is a nice place to help people decide about a product based on your own experience, make friends, hone your writing skills and earning some reputation while doing it. If you think Ciao fits you, why not join Ciao as it has just started to grow big under Microsoft (The giant acquired it as of October 15 2008). Just be sure to add me “thurana” – as your friend and give honest-good comments on my reviews. :)

Share what you think about this service using the comment below.

Make Review And Make Friends With Ciao originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Make Tech Easier » microsoft