Microsoft Security Essentials

Since installing Vista about 2 years ago I made the decision not to use any anti-virus software. I consider myself to be reasonably aware of how viruses spread, I don’t open attachments unless I know who they’re from and why they’ve been sent, I don’t go to suspicious websites, I don’t download much so don’t really see the need for an anti-virus solution.

In the past 2 years, and for at least 3 years before that, I have not had a single virus (you may ask how I know if I’ve got nothing to tell me) – occasionally I’ve used online scanners to run a full system scan or scanned my machine over the network from someone else’s computer. So I’d rather not install a bit of software that is constantly running and consuming resources on the off chance I might pick up a virus.

Back when I started out with a pc Norton Anti-Virus was quite good, small and with a relatively low memory footprint (the same is true of MacAfee, ZoneAlarm etc, I’m not singling anyone out here), but now the installers can be 400MB or more, which is why they’re so bloated. I simply don’t want bloated, rarely used and high-maintenance software. I’ve been safe since then.

But Microsoft Security Essentials changed my mind somewhat. I still don’t think I need anti virus, but the trade off, in this case, is not so bad. It seems to only require 11MB disk space and doesn’t intrude in to my other applications. For the most part I’m not even aware that it is running. The only sign is an addition to my Windows Explorer shell and the weekly scan I’ve scheduled to run when I’m unlikely to be using the computer. I also trust that it integrates with the other security features of Vista, but as I’m due to get my copy of Windows 7 tomorrow I’m hoping that’ll also prove to be no problem.