Microsoft Security Essentials

This is the big news today. From what I am reading all over the web anyway. Microsoft has taken the beta version of “Microsoft Security Essentials” anti-virus software out of beta and allowing the public to download it for free.

For free? What? I did a little doubletake at this one. I have been looking for good free anti-virus software for a while. Well, ever since Norton AntiVirus started annoying me. Let me tell you why I got annoyed:

1. Every time I have to renew Norton, it seems like the price goes up. How much higher can they go?
2. Norton has this annoying feature that sets auto-renew to “on” by default. While this is good for those of us who forget to renew our anti-virus software, it can get annoying for us who can handle this chore. Personally, I like to give my options a yearly review. Good thing they send that email to warn me and to remind me to turn off auto-renew.
3. Apparently, Norton has had some issues with double-charging their customers when it comes time to renew the software. They did this to me. Hey, don’t take my word for it, just click here to see for yourself.

The reviews on Microsoft Security Essentials have been pretty good. I watched a few videos of the beta version and people seem pretty happy with what they get. Remember, this is free, but I think it only works on Windows. It’s a shame we just renewed three computers here at about $50 each. Yeah, I told you it was expensive.

Here is a video describing the free anti-virus software.