Microsoft on Tuesday released a beta version of its new anti-virus offering, Microsoft Security Essentials (aka “Morro”). My review, in short: the program is a fast, easy and discreet new addition to the stability of anti-virus options available today.

MSE is basically the next generation of Microsoft Windows Live OneCare anti-virus and anti-spyware, but without the extras, such as a firewall solution for data backup and restore or performance tuning PC (Microsoft announced in November 2008 that OneCare should stop selling through its distribution channels at the end of June 2009).

The most difficult part was to be part of the program installed. MSE can run on Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 (both 32-bit and 64-bit versions), but the program failed to install on an XP Pro system, I tried to use my test machine initial – leaving me with nothing more than the failure message and the cryptic error code does not have anything in an online search.

Fortunately, it installed without problem on my system Windows 7 Beta. Interested users are advised that the installation MET requires that candidates for the user of the pass system of Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage tool in the fight against piracy, which checks to make sure it is being installation on a licensed version of Windows. Would also be users should register or have a free Windows Live (or Hotmail) account to download the program.

After installation, MET spends a few minutes to download other files, then invite the user to perform a “Quick Scan”. True to its name, that the analysis took less than 10 minutes on my test system. A complete analysis, however, took about 45 minutes on a fresh install of Windows 7.

Anti-virus are known for sucking up system resources, but you can be forgiven for forgetting this program is still running. He just used more than 4 MB of system memory for the entire time I tested, including scans.

By default, ASP scans archived files (. Zip, for example), and creates a system restore point before deleting all files that triggered alarms. The only option to not scan the default is to scan removable drives – such as USB drives – for the virus. But users can enable this option.

The program is not only a scanner at the request: It includes real-time protection, which Microsoft said, “alerts you when the viruses, spyware and other unwanted software attempts to install itself or if run on your computer. ”

In addition, the monitors of ASP files and program activity on your computer, and automatically scans all downloaded files and attachments. If it finds something, it will ask you what to do with the suspicious file, and if the user takes no action after 10 minutes, Microsoft will decide what to do with the file (s) according to its default actions. Out of the box, it schedules a scan every Sunday at 2:00 am, but only if the PC is idle at that time.

Much has been written so far on the risk of reverse MSE Giants put in place anti-virus industry. It is too early to say whether this will happen, or how the new offering from Microsoft will be able to test against real-life malware tests that are beyond the scope of this review.

Personally, I doubt it takes will have much impact on anti-virus market as a whole. If anti-virus industry players are the road in the years to come, it will be because either they gobbled by their (non-Microsoft) competitors, or they fail to adapt to threats the most recent.

Whenever the question of Microsoft’s launch its weight around security in space arises, it is still the same issues of trust, confidentiality and efficiency. Let me address some common themes in the context of MET:

Microsoft operating system, it is probably best equipped to produce software capable of defending its weaknesses: The truth is that Microsoft continues to defend the weaknesses of Windows. Each month, the vessels of new patches to fix problems of stability and security in its software that did not know until the villains and researchers have discovered and proved that they were usable. In addition, Microsoft is not a more favorable position vis-à-vis other anti-virus in order to tell who the bad guys turns out of their hat next.

Microsoft is responsible for the same buggy software that allows the breaking of bad guys, so why would you trust them to do a good job of defending your PC against malware?: This is a good question, but people to ask this question most likely never install the software anyway.

And, although I do not think Microsoft has the time or desire to go through the root systems of users of personal information, the disclaimer for the lack of basic membership in Microsoft SpyNet delivered with MET is not likely to reassure those who doubt the intentions of the company. It reads as follows:

“Send the information base on Microsoft software Microsoft Security Essentials detects, including when the software source, the steps that you request or that Microsoft Security Essentials applied automatically, and if the shares have been successful. In some cases, personal information may be inadvertently sent to Microsoft. However, Microsoft will not use this information to identify or contact you. ”

Microsoft offers this product only for it to gain a foothold in the market for security software, after which he will begin the load of people to protect their computers while his arms stiff competition: Microsoft said it plans to continue offering free MET. And for all the reasons above, I do not believe that Microsoft offers an anti-virus is being stolen too many paying customers out of other products. After all, there are many other anti-virus products available, including avast! Home Edition, Avira’s AntiVir, AVG Free, ClamWin, PCTOOLS, and the new Panda Antivirus offers Cloud, just to name a few.

I suspect that Microsoft offers software partly for reasons of public relations and part self-preservation: Redmond knows that anything they can do to ensure that there is less malware infested on the PC it is a good thing. And let’s face it, for whatever reason – even with the impressive number of anti-virus, there are already offers – a safe number of Windows users to continue using the operating system without any type of anti-virus software installed. At least with its brand recognition, Microsoft has a good chance to change that reality to some extent.

One last remark, if you are interested in trying this software, you want to move fairly quickly. Microsoft intends to make this beta available only to the first 75,000 downloaders in the United States, Brazil or Israel.

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