just finished helping my neighbour set up her new desktop and notebooks. she was told to put Microsoft Security Essentials on instead of AVG + Spybot which was what she used previously.

Minty says Malwarebytes is one of the best ones out there.

had anyone had experience with MS Security Essentials? wonder what the difference is!

i currently use AVAST, Ad Aware and Spy bot...but am looking for more efficient products. the ones i use are freely downloaded.

I recommend MSE through & through!

I'll second that...Microsoft have done a great job with MSE....It does the business and is a highly efficient AV program !

many thanks for your replies. when i get my new system set up, i shall download it.

can you tell me if i am able to get definition updates off line. the computer i have with the new windows7 and also the one i will use ms essentials on is not connected to the internet. i was able to obtain off line files with both avast and avg.

This should help you out;
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971606

@ vino - When you say MSE "vs" Malwarebytes, what do you mean by versus?? It's not really an "either/or" situation is it? Why not just use both? [not that you need to use both, MSE is fine on it's own] But MSE+Malwarebytes on a PC would be pretty "reassuring" for the user and quite a formidable combination in my opinion. - Also, I've never quite seen the point of having AdAware at all [I have actually used it in my early days as a noob with PCs and didn't find it to be much use actually!] ...... SpyBot gives "false positives" and isn't as good as it once was.
[So basically, I suppose what am suggesting is to use MSE as your "real time" protection and scan occasionally with Malwarebytes, the freebie version.]

MSE is a great free antivirus solution.
See http://av-comparatives.org/ for a comparison.

I can recommend using 2 on-demand scanners:
- Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
- SuperAntispyware Free Edition
(Both require manual updates).

Some members use MBAM (Paid) alongside their AV, the paid version has an IP Protection Module, it's realtime protection has also improved.

See http://www.youtube.com/mrizos for anti-malware prevention videos.

Personally, I'd remove Ad-Aware.

Hope this helps.

thank you all for your tips and links. i have save the link for off0-line definition downloads for MS Security Essentials.
i have already downloaded files for Malawarebytes and Superantispyware (free editions) and am ready to go. now i wait for my new system to be put together. hopefully by the weekend i shall have it..

then the fun will begin..connecting my peripherals and see if they work. then my software programs including the old ones i ran on xp which may or may not run on windows 7. lots to learn and have fun with.

I would recommend Malwarebytes because it always pops up a note that there was a malware/virus caught on this site and when I used MSE, it just never popped up anything like it treated the malware/virus as nothing.MSE is has this .exe that is almost like Windows Defender(which slows down your computer a lot) called "msmpeng.exe" that takes a lot of "memory usage" in the windows task manager. Malwarebytes has this .exe called "mbamservice.exe" with only takes up just a little bit of the memory usage. It also has a "mbamgui.exe" which also takes up a little bit.

It more about CPU usage times, rather than memory usage (unless you have only 512MB RAM using MSE shouldn't be a problem.

When I tested MBAM (Paid), it's realtime IP Blocking doesn't necessarily mean that it can detect all the malware, from the website it blocks.

I use MSE (2.0 Beta) with Malwarebytes' as an on-demand scanner.