Microsoft's Free AV Protection Looks Great, But Has Been Pulled From Download

From DailyTech: Codenamed "Morro", Microsoft's free antivirus software offering has been one of the most anticipated software releases of the year, perhaps only playing second fiddle to Microsoft's own Windows 7. The release is expected to shake up the security market, which is split currently between pricey offerings, and a handful of free competitors like AVG which assail the user with ads encouraging them to purchase "premium" versions.

Microsoft's new software, named Microsoft Security Essentials, comes without the sticker-shock or ad burden. It was available yesterday for free download in beta form (read on -- it's no longer available, though).

For its part, Microsoft insists that the software isn't designed to make the antimalware paid software market obsolete. It insists that its software is primarily for users who currently have no protection. Indeed, the software lacks many of the bells and whistles that its predecessor, OneCare, had. Among these omitted features are a dedicated firewall, data backup solution and restore or PC performance tuning.

On the other hand Windows XP (as of Service Pack 2) and Windows Vista already come with firewalls, so for most users the need for a second firewall is questionable (most users have trouble configuring one firewall, let alone two). And most users don't ever use the data backup or tuning features offered on antimalware suites -- they just are looking for protection against threats. In that regard, by offering equally strong or even stronger malware protection, Microsoft's new software threatens to make AV consumer software sales obsolete (though vendors may choose to move to Apple, which is a promising new target and offers no such free protection).

The biggest problem with the software? It was released yesterday and the beta program has already filled up. Microsoft released a message stating, "Thank you for your interest in joining the Microsoft® Security Essentials Beta. We are not accepting additional participants at this time. Please check back at later a date for possible additional availability."

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