Microsoft Security Essentials is arguably the best free computer security tool. I looked at the free antivirus application in October and found it ticked all the important boxes.

It works well, it imposes hardly any overhead and the price is right. Yet as Simon Sharwood says at SearchSecurity, the lack of interest in Security Essential has Microsoft scratching its head.

Moreover, Sharwood asked security specialist Symantec what effect the Microsoft package had on its sales. “None at all” was the reply.

It seems Microsoft has a great security package, but the company can't give it away.

Microsoft can’t give away better security :: SearchSecurity.com.au

Do you need the new version of Microsoft Office? After reading about today’s Office 2010 launch, I doubt I will upgrade. But I may need Word 2010.

Office 2010’s new feature list fails to interest me. It’s a long list of things I don’t need.

For example, I don’t need the SharePoint integration. I can’t use SQL or the Office Communications Server.

I’ve stopped using Outlook. So anything new there passes me by. Outlook doesn’t make sense for a single user when Gmail is so much easier.

I’d rather slash my wrists than inflict PowerPoint on anyone.

Much as I admire Excel, I barely use it. The Office 2007 version is more than enough. If I’m stuck, Google Spreadsheets can ride to my rescue.

Word 2010

Word is different. I use Word 2007 daily. I’m a journalist. My word processing needs are basic.

I don’t use mail merge or do anything fancy involving macros. I’ve never used cross-references, indexing, or end-notes.

For me, Word is a sledgehammer cracking a nut.

I certainly don’t need any more Word features. In fact, I’d prefer fewer.

For all its allegedly user friendly face, Word is a complex mishmash of fancy new gadgets and clunky old bits which still don’t work as expected and barely work with each other.

The extra graphic handling features in Word 2010 mean nothing to me. Word’s fussy auto-formatting makes my blood boil. The safety features are also annoying.

If I need to collaborate on documents – which happens in at least two of my regular freelance jobs – I use Google Docs. It’s a lousy word-processor, but a great way to share.

Despite all this, I still may shell out for Word, simply because it is a tool of my trade. I’m comfortable working in Word. Moving to an alternative would be a small financial investment, but a huge investment in terms of training.

I’ve found over the years it pays to stay up-to-date with Word because sooner or later I run in to compatibility problems.

Which sums things up. I don’t need Office 2010. I may need Word 2010, but not yet.

No upgrade discount

All of which makes Microsoft's decision to charge everyone full price for the software look like a dumb move. Lord knows there's little enough incentive to upgrade, but to make users pay a premium rather than offer discounted upgrade prices will make the buying decision far easier for many users.

After spending a fair chunk of Saturday afternoon cruising technology outlets on Auckland's North Shore, I can report packaged software is dead.

I wanted to buy a copy of Quicken Home and Business 2010. In my search I visited two branches of Dick Smith Electronics, and one each of Noel Leeming, Warehouse Stationary, Bond and Bond, and PB Technologies. That's a total of six stores.

While many had healthy-looking displays of games – mainly for consoles, none had much in the way of packaged PC applications.

Versions of Microsoft Windows 7, an operating system, were just about everywhere. One store, I forget which, possibly Noel Leeming, had a big display of Norton's security applications. I saw a smattering of MYOB products and a few Adobe products along with Quickbooks and a handful of other security products.

And that was about it.

Harvey Norman had what looked like the biggest and most comprehensive application offering. But this isn't what it seems. Its Wairau Park store was the only outlet displaying Quicken Home and Business 2010. And yet the three boxes on display were empty – labels suggested customers ask sales staff for the discs. I did this and waited ten minutes. When the sales person returned he checked the stock computer and discovered there was no stock.

I solved my immediate needs by signing up for Xero, the online accounts system.

New PCs are thick on the ground at this time of year and so are PC problems. People deluge customer support teams with enquiries as they struggle to get to grips with recently acquired machines.

While there are rogue computers, many problems are less about faulty or difficult to use hardware and more about the marketing choices made by PC makers.

For example, laptop makers keen to keep their products below certain key price points have shipped models without enough ram. That’s dumb. Microsoft says Windows 7  (now installed on most machines) requires a minimum of 1GB to run in 32-bit mode or 2GB in 64-bit mode.

Realistically 2GB is the bare minimum and you ought to have 4GB or more. Otherwise your computer experience will be somewhere between sluggish and barely functional.

If you find yourself struggling to squeeze performance out of a laptop in these circumstances you have two realistic options: buy extra ram or dump Windows and install Windows XP (or if you’re brave, Ubuntu) instead.

Either way you’ll be in for some extra cost and a degree of fiddling around before you have a practical computer – which may not leave you feeling well-disposed towards your laptop maker.

Another problem area is the bundled software loaded by the manufacturer. A lot of it is rubbish. No, scrub that. Almost all of it is rubbish.

You may find programs you’ll never use automatically loading themselves into memory each time you boot. They can slow your computer down or interfere with other programs causing glitches or even crashes.

Alternatively you may find yourself connected to registration sites and badgered for personal information. Some preloaded applications are spyware – secretly reporting your computing activity to people whether you like it or not.

If this worries you – and it should – the best strategy is to start by making sure you have antivirus software and firewall installed and switched on. Then install an anti-spyware program like Microsoft’s Windows Defender (download from www.microsoft.com). Finally using the Add or Remove Programs panel in Windows Control Panel, systematically work through the pre-installed applications deciding what, if anything, is worth keeping and dumping anything else.

An alternative is to use CCleaner a tool to automatically get rid of the crud choking a PC.

Microsoft Security Essentials sips system resources so sparingly there's no noticeable effect on my computer's performance.

And yet the free application protects my system from malware and attacks.

Lightweight

Security Essentials is lightweight compared with Microsoft's earlier, paid-for, OneCare security.

It only uses 280k of system memory on my test machine. The download is 8.5Mb and the installed program occupies about 12Mb scattered between the Program Files and Program Data folders on my on my C: drive. Of course there could be other components stored elsewhere – getting the full picture about software installations isn't easy when you run Windows 7.

One week has passed since installing the software. There's been no noticable performance hit running Security Essentials. System benchmarks are the same with and without the program installed. This is in stark contrast to Norton Internet Security 2010 which slowed my machine by about 4 percent to begin with, then progressively worsened to the point where it became unusable after ten hours operation.

Microsoft's program took seconds to download, then another five minutes or so to go back and fetch the necessary anti-malware signatures. I'm running Windows 7 beta and am completely up-to-date which meant things went smoothly for me. The Security Essentials installer will insist you download and install all the Windows updates before the application installs.

Scanning goes on for ever

I immediately ran a full system scan and quickly regretted the decision. Scanning isn't fast. The software warns users scans may take some time, but my first scan was still running some six hours after first installing the software. I started another scan before writing this piece and one hour, 15 minutes later the software has only scanned 76,000 items. The indicator bar is only 5 percent of the way across the screen.

It is possible to scan attached drives with the software, but there aren't enough hours in the day to test this.

To date Security Essentials hasn't found anything untoward on this computer. To check the software's effectiveness, I scanned my machine with Panda Cloud Antivirus and Avast. Neither found anything. Nor did Norton Internet Security 2010 find anything before being removed.

Google-like interface

Microsoft clearly learnt a thing or two competing with Google in recent years. The user interface on Security Essentials is minimalist. It uses bright red to show problems and is green while everything is safe. There are hardly any controls – compare this to the user interface on Norton Internet Security 2010 which is like the flight deck of the Star Ship Enterprise. The good news is there are few things to tinker with and break. I didn't notice anything needing changes.

When a threat appears online, the real-time protection mode kicks-in and displays a message in a pop-up window. This appears in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. You can dismiss it with a click or get more information. A lot more information than you'll ever need.

Evil empire

You can't argue with Microsoft's price for Security Essentials. It is free. In fact it looks as if it was part of the operating system from the outset. And it may have been. But Microsoft doesn't include it as standard with Windows 7 because of anti-trust considerations. There are people who are wary of using security software from Microsoft – some argue security problems only exist because of flaws in the company's operating systems. Maybe. But the Macintosh is no longer immune.

Competitors

Norton's paid-for security products are far more advanced than Microsoft Security Essentials – but the name makes that clear. This software does about 90 percent of the job of protecting your computer from attack. If you run a home system, take security seriously, run a hardware firewall and keep all you applications and systems software up to date, Security Essentials should protect you from all but the most serious attacks.

Microsoft Security Essentials is not suitable for business users and not the best choice if your home set-up is, well, let's say anarchic. Paid for products may give you better piece of mind.

Microsoft scrubs up well against the free competitors, but without extensive testing I'd rate Avast ahead of Security Essentials, there's also a solid free program from AVG we run on some of our home machines. We experienced some problems with these at the Bennett household as the free versions are difficult to find among the paid-for alternatives at these two sites.

Another alternative is the excellent Panda Cloud Antivirus – one of the best kept secrets in the security business and neither nags nor hides behind a paid alternative. You can read more about Panda and Avast in Alternatives to Norton Internet Security.

Pluses:

• free
• downloads and installs in minutes
• works straight away
• simple, unobtrusive
• easy to understand
• no performance hit

Minuses:

• slow scanning
• relatively untried
• doesn't offer the best protection

Overall:

A basic security product from a big name at an unrivalled price. Get this if you have no budget and are not confident dealing with other free security applications.

My plan was to use Google Docs exclusively for two weeks. I wanted to test its viability as a Microsoft Word alternative.

The experiment fell at the first hurdle. I caved in after two days because my productivity dropped too far. Worse, I made many more errors with Google Docs than with Word.

Let’s set the scene. I’m a professional journalist. Typically I’d write 10,000 or more words a week. That’s close to 2000 words each workday and a few more on the weekend. When you’re tapping out that many words, the tools really matter.

Productivity hit

My productivity dropped 25 percent when I switched to Google Docs. This may have been temporary – maybe my speed would pick up as I became familiar with the software. But the price was too high – a 25 percent productivity drop means I working 33 percent longer to produce the same output. This is not acceptable.

What was the big problem? Google Docs requires more mouse activity than Microsoft Word. Both applications offer a full set of keyboard shortcuts and many of them are the same. However scrolling up and down the page to read my work was considerably harder in Google Docs.

Cutting and pasting copy from other documents was also harder. And curiously I had problems switching between web browser and Google Docs. Switching between a browser and Word using alt-tab is easier than control-tabbing through a large number of open browser tabs.

Just to make sure the problem wasn't related to the browser, I used Google Docs with Firefox and Internet Explorer. I also tried using Google Docs in a separate browser Window.

Two days into the experiment my wrists were starting to ache from the extra mousing. I didn’t experience serious pain – I bailed out before reaching that point.

Never mind the quality, feel the width

Speed is important. So is quality.

My other problem with Google Docs was proofing. That’s the business of rereading your words to find and correct mistakes or improve the text. At first I struggled to find why my proofing was so bad. Then it hit me. Text in Google Docs extends across the entire width of the screen – while Word text is restricted to relatively narrow columns. Proofing is harder with wider text columns.

There maybe ways to work around these problems, but I need to get on and earn a crust, so earlier today I went back to Microsoft Word – a better experience.

Microsoft Security Essentials

I would like to try Microsoft's new free Security Essentials. I'm in New Zealand and locked out of the official download site. Yes, I know there are ways around the lock-out. I’m aiming to stay ethical. If you know how I can get hold of a legitimate copy please leave a comment or use the contact page.

Updated:Microsoft Security Essentials, an impressive alternative.

Avast

When I installed Windows 7 RC on my computers I loaded Norton Internet Security 2010 beta on the desktop and a free desktop security application from Avast on my Thinkpad. We also tried AVG’s free anti-virus software on a Thinkpad.

Both free anti-virus programs are functional and handle everyday security. We’re behind a NAT firewall and keep our machines clean, so our security needs are basic. The features not included in the free versions of the programs are of no interest to me, however I would like to schedule Avast to scan my laptop at regular intervals.

Avast appears to do a better job at hunting down problems, but AVG has a better user interface. We've now standardised on Avast on our laptops because the software appears easier to deal with and, when it comes to this kind of work, a good brain trumps a pretty face.

Both programs slow the computer down less than Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2010 beta – that wouldn't be hard. Their overhead is barely noticeable.

Free anti-virus negatives

Both free anti-virus programs are difficult to find and download. They are hidden behind paid-for products from the same companies. And both nag about updating – in ways that send you off to pay for versions of the software.

Of course, developers have to eat. I’m not complaining, the price of free security software is a small annoyance. Or to put it another way, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. On a point by point basis Avast seems less of a problem than AVG – but this could be perception and not reality.

One downside of the free software asking for updates and not automatically scanning is it  feels as if the PC lacks proper protection.

Update: I took a later look at  an updated version of AVG and hated it inAVG Anti-Virus Free 9.0: far too much trouble

Panda Cloud Anti-virus

For now I'm sticking with Avast on my Thinkpad and we've switched from AVG to Avast on my wife's Thinkpad. But Avast didn't feel satisfactory on my main desktop, so I searched for an alternative and discovered Panda Cloud Anti-virus.

Panda Cloud Anti-virus looks and feels very different from all other security software. Panda is a software-as-a-service application that sends data about dangerous looking files to its own servers for closer inspection. This means no noticeable performance overhead. It also means the checking database is always bang up-to-date.

Panda is still a work in progress. Or more to the point, a beta. But unlike Symantec's beta, it seems fully functional. I've run Panda Cloud Anti-virus for roughly one month without any problems. My biggest fear is I never hear from the program, so I need to check to see it is running – which it always is.

Given the ease at which Panda slips into the background, to the point where it is unnoticeable, I'd have to say this is the most promising security tool I have found so far.

See also:
Norton’s Windows 7 beta – security update

A press release from Nielsen (not online at the time of writing) says Mozilla Firefox is winning New Zealand  users away from Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

It is, but Microsoft's browser still accounts for a 60 percent market share. According to Nielsen, Internet Explorer dropped from 72 percent to 60 percent between July 2006 and July 2009. Over the same period Firefox climbed from 11 percent to 20 percent. The remaining market share goes to rats and mice – with Google's Chrome picking up just 3.2 percent of the market.

At the current rate, it'll be at least two more years before Microsoft's market share drops below 50 percent – and longer again before Firefox goes past Internet Explorer.

Nielsen's press release doesn't explain what it means by market share. However, the company manages a net measuring business where it tracks traffic to a number of commercial websites. Browser information is included in the traffic information, so it's reasonable to assume Nielsen  adds up each browser's share of the total traffic to these sites. Because Nielsen's clients are among New Zealand's busiest sites, it is a reasonable measure of total share.

What Nielsen doesn't measure is the way many users, myself included, switch between browsers for different jobs. I'd also like to see data on which versions of the various browsers are used.

There's also no mention of mobile browsers – which may still be very much a freak show – but are likely to grab market share quickly now New Zealand has two reasonable mobile data networks.

http://nz.nielsen.com/news/index.shtml