MS Security Essentials - now free to small business

[mwnci]

Just read this blog post from MS.

MS Security Essentials can now be used by small businesses/organisations for free on up to 10 computers. Previously it was licensed for personal use only. This may of use to anyone out there with a very small network.

[AngryTechnician]

This is great news, though technically it's not free 'now', but will be free "in early October". Just something to think about before we all rush out and install it today.

[plexer]

I think it should be free for uk schools

[soveryapt]

I think it should be free for uk schools

Aye! That would be good ..

I'm in the lovely position at the moment of not being able to run out the latest Sophos having upgraded to 2008R2 as our county servers that supply the updates haven't been updated to the latest webset as yet and won't be until half term at the earliest. So I'm planning to integrate MSE into the machine images for the time being and reissue it, but I'm fully aware of the license implications, but also highly aware of the worry of viruses on a network!

The only other option is to get the school to foot the bill for a license for updates for Sophos or something in the mean time ..

[mwnci]

I think it should be free for uk schools

Sadly the anti-competitive lobby would have something to say about that. Even though it would be better for us users to have virus protection as an integral part of the OS, the likes of Symantec etc will never allow it. Maybe, those companies should start making better products that don't grind our computers to a halt. Then is might be worthwhile forking out a bit more cash for more advanced security software.

[SYSMAN_MK]

I think it should be free for uk schools

Mentioned this a while ago here We can live in hope.

[mwnci]

Legal issues aside, surely it makes sense that an OS installation should include some tools to keep that installation virus free and secure its integrity and ability to function. There are plenty of people who would use Security Essentials if it was bundled. I use it as an add on at home at the moment, and it does the job very well.

Sure feel free to purchase more advanced, feature rich software which would maybe do a better job, but I think for the vast majority of users (yes those who routinely get ripped off by Mcafee and co), a bundled solution would be ample.

[soveryapt]

I dunno .. I think from the point of view that the bundled stuff would offer a certain level of protection, yes there will always be something better out there (I use iWorks on my Mac instead of Office 2008 these days, it cost half the price and I can have it on 5 family machines and it works better) but for the basic side of things, better to have it there than not.

I don't ordinarilly use NotePad, but if I'm looking to take down a quick note I'll use either that or WordPad (TextEdit on a Mac) because you know it's likely to be there.

It's one of those things, I'd much rather have a managed solution in place, but where that's not possible to have something is better than to have nothing (and in the world of antivirus, to have MSE is better than to have Symantec .. lol)

[flyinghaggis]

Sure feel free to purchase more advanced, feature rich software which would maybe do a better job, but I think for the vast majority of users (yes those who routinely get ripped off by Mcafee and co), a bundled solution would be ample.

I'd agree. The usual suspects bundling AV 'trialware' is one of the biggest factors contributing to security issues on the internet. Problem is they give you a 6 month trial which expires, virtually nobody bothers to renew the subscription hence joe bloggs is left with worthless out of date antivirus. Would be better if perhaps when the AV expired the PC defaulted to MS Security Essentials as an alternative since it's vastly better than out of date AV.

In fact IMO (for home users at least) Security Essentials is better than all of the paid-for solutions out there !

[SYNACK]

I think it should be free for uk schools

I think it should be free for all schools

[soveryapt]

In fact IMO (for home users at least) Security Essentials is better than all of the paid-for solutions out there !

Agreed!

[john]

Thats great new for my local charity as they have 9 PCs so we won't have to pay to renew the Anti-Virus late this year Thanks Microsoft

[PiqueABoo]

Saw that on bink.nu yesterday and cursed it quite a bit for not being the change I wanted! MSE is very nice because of that simplicity, relatively low resource usage which helps with older kit and I've seen it reach malicious parts that the usual bloated AV suspects have missed. Oh and it hasn't yet blue-screened a box, or corrupted a file system and so on. If they made it free to education say <= 100 computers I'd be happy, although I'd be happier with some similarly simple, low resource central management - when to update, can't be messed with and so on.

[glennda]

If it was legal to use i would use it in school - we currently have mcrappy as its only £50 a year through the Lea - although sales people don't like it when we say that if they can beat our renewal price we will swap

[Amran]

I also think it should be free for all schools