Battle Avast 6 free antivirus vs Microsoft Security Essentials.

[Tommy]

I would go with Avast free antivirus due to all it's features and I think it eats less RAM this Microsoft Security Essentials. Microsoft Security Essentials is really just an antivirus with nothing added in my opinion.

 

[Valentin N]

On the other hand Microsoft offers MSE for free even for small businesses. I'll assume the role of MSE defender

I guess MSE will take the role that Fore Front Client has now.

 

[ghost]

You're talking about Microsoft, you know that, don't you? They have the possibility to create much more then tiny RAM hungry MSE. I don't have anything against the program or the company but comparing it to Avast they can't win, yet. Anything is possible..

 

[jamescv7]

Avast 6 have lots of features especially the implementing of sandbox for running suspicious files in virtual.

MSE have a simple interface, and provides good protection on users.

If i need to choose i will go to Avast.

 

[techgeek88]

Avast 6 all the way. It's the one I put on all my clients PC's if they don't want to pay for Kaspersky.

MSE is a RAM hog from my experience.

 

[Dieselman]

My problem with MSE and installing it on customers pc's is that it involves user interaction. The more user interaction there is the higher the chances of getting infected are. Sure MSE may find a threat but if you don't click "recommended action" your toast. Yes I know you can change that but I always speak in the default status of any product. MSE is also a ram hog. Most cases I have seen MSE is using 60MB..............My vote goes for Avast. MSE is good but not good enough to stand on its own.

 

[bogdan]

RAM hog indeed, but I have to admit I don't notice any slowdowns while using it. Another issue is the self protection, at-least under the default admin account.

 

[Dieselman]

Slow downs are usually caused by excessive disk writing and cpu usage. But I get customers with 512Mb or ram up to 1GB. MSE swallows up there systems. Heck I installed MSE on this one computer and after rebooting I could not even use the mouse cause MSE was eating everything.

 

[Valentin N]

Lets not forget that MSE is young and has a long way to go before could say it's mature. Avast on the other hand is a veteran so it's quite obvious that Avast it's better; it has experience and mature enough.

 

[Guest28]

MSE was once ahead of all the products in it's beta 1.0 stage i remember going to malwaredomainlist and it detecting everything i put past it. I wish MSE would add more protection features but this is not likely at all. MSE is to be noob friendly sandboxing and file reputation looks out of the question for now. We will see what MSE 3.0 brings.

 

[win7holic]

i'm choose avast 6 free
for more better protect i'm combine it with comodo FW, i'm doing that after my NIS trial end
hmm
for MSE.. i not like bcoz slow down scan system and not powerful
*that is just my opinion.. ^^

 

[moonshine]

I choose Avast Free 6, Its gotta be the most feature packed free antivirus available today, Plus its light on RAM and scans much faster than MSE, I lost hope with MSE mainly for it to be very much lacking everything,

 

[jamescv7]

Yet Microsoft offers basic protection which compared to Avast that's more protection and its like same from the paid of avast.

 

[EMET]

It's funny that it's a choice between these two.
They both let me down, but Avast is nice software.

Avast!

 

[Dieselman]

Every anti virus will let you down. Nothing is perfect.

 

[Ramblin]

I used both but I am not using neither one now. I prefer MSE over
Avast for no reason in particular. Avast never gave me any trouble
but for some reason I got bored of using it after 4 months. MSE 1
was perfect on my XP SP3 system but when version2 came out, I
started experiencing CPU surges too often, that's why I am not
using it now.
After MSE 2, I stopped using AV real time.

Bo

 

[moonshine]

I tested both Avast and MSE this week, I felt no slowdowns with MSE but after seeing its RAM usage at idle, It was terrible for a standalone AV, The RAM usage during scans are really high too so that was a big down for me, The scan speed of MSE is pretty slow too even if I have just 9.9 GB of Data in here, Full scan took 20 minutes, My Experience with Avast is that, even though it has multiple shields (I install all shields), I feel no performance impact with it, even if its scanning, So my choice will still be Avast but MSE is still a good choice,