By way of introduction, I’m Eric Foster and have recently joined my colleagues on The Windows Blog to write on ‘all things’ security. I thought it only fitting that my first blog be about one of my favorite personal product recommendations, Microsoft Security Essentials.

Not sure how many of you know about the VB100 award but it’s a public test conducted by Virus Bulletin, a highly reputable testing organization in the industry, designed to measure the detection effectiveness and quality of antivirus (AV) products. The most important validation of AV quality comes from independent certification organizations like Virus Bulletin. 

And so it is no surprise that we are very excited to share that Microsoft Security Essentials, our no-cost anti-malware service for consumers, achieved the VB100 award for the August 2010 Edition of Virus Bulletin.  

There are a number of different methodologies that can be used to test the effectiveness of an anti-virus solution. In order for a product to be awarded the VB100 certification, it needs to detect 100% of the WildList malware samples (a prevalent malware subset contributed by a group of researchers in AV community) and must not have any false positives (FP or incorrect detections) on the Virus Bulletin clean file collection. According to Virus Bulletin, “Detection rates were strong as ever...with no problems in the WildList or clean sets, Microsoft earns another VB100 award with ease.” [Page 50, Virus Bulletin August 2010 Edition]

Microsoft products including Microsoft Security Essentials and Forefront Client Security, have received VB100 awards since June 2007, demonstrating Microsoft’s dedication to quality and our commitment to providing effective anti-malware protection to consumers and enterprise customers alike.

If you don’t already have an AV solution installed on your PC – and its estimated that over 80% of consumers report having up-to-date AV installed but market data shows that less than 50% of consumers actually do – you can get Microsoft Security Essentials at no cost by visiting the Microsoft Security Essentials website here .

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Good to hear this! I am using MSE on my win7 machine and have not had any issues. When Norton expires on XP machine no renewal for me.

Yes I am one of those that has been testing the beta.... and it is a great av program.

I too have been an early, an current beta tester. MSE as proven to be an effective product. i put it on every system I can, and some I shouldn't.

Ken