Microsoft Security Essentials Finds New Malware But Avoids False Positives, Still the Best Free Option

Microsoft Security Essentials Finds New Malware But Avoids False Positives, Still the Best Free OptionMicrosoft's free Security Essentials package rates well at removing malware and running light, but what about dealing with brand-new, unidentified bad stuff? Turns out Security Essentials is still the best at figuring out what's bad—while also avoiding annoying false positives.

In a follow-up to their previous performance tests, long-running, independent testing site AV-Comparatives.org loaded up anti-virus and malware prevention suites with definition updates from February 2010, but slipped them malware and other bad stuff that had been detected and defined since then. This was to test the heuristic and analytic powers of these security suites—in other words, to see if the software could figure out up-to-the-minute malware, even if their providers haven't cataloged them yet in an update, or if the update hasn't hit your computer yet.

The straight-up performance of 20 security suites is shown in this graph, excerpted from AV-Comparatives' full report (click for a larger view—bigger equals better).

That chart only shows detection of the known bad stuff. For balance, AV-Comparatives also checked how often each software provided false positives—warning of potential viruses and the like on benign software. As a site with AutoHotkey-based apps that generates a lot of incorrect security warnings, we're sensitive to this measure of quality.

So while Microsoft Security Essentials wasn't the absolute winner in finding new malware without a definition available, it was the highest ranking free option, and it did perform best among those apps that had "Very few false alarms"—perfect for software that's free and light on resources.

Microsoft Security Essentials Finds New Malware But Avoids False Positives, Still the Best Free Option

On that level, pay apps F-Secure also detected smartly with few annoyances, as did BitDefender. You can read the full report at the direct PDF link below, or see AV-Comparatives's backlog of tests at their main test results list. Thanks to Charles for sending in the link!

Independent Tests of Anti-Virus Software [AV-Comparatives]
Proactive/Retrospective Test (Direct PDF link)

Have you ever had this problem with your Outlook Express:

The outlook express spell check thinks all words typed are wrong because its stuck on french setting and when you go to change it, french is the only option.

Well here is how you can fix it.

Open the Control Panel. Using Classic View, click on Regional and
Language Options. Click on Languages.
Click on Details. Click on Add, if US is not available. Have the CD
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If you are using Office 2007 the spell checker is no longer available for
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Here is a link to one: http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2952 

If after installing Office 2007 you find that the spell checker in OE not
working properly and the only dictionary language installed is FRENCH, you
need to reinstall the 'proofing tools' from a pervious version of Office if
you have it.