Perhaps saving a fistful of dollars isn’t something you’ll say you’d be interested in, but you’d be lying. When it comes to computer security and antivirus software, personal and business PC users spend a huge amount of cash at the Symantecs, Kasperskis, McAfees (and many others) of the world. However, even though a few remain free and fairly effective at preventing and/or finding infections on our boxes, most average users aren’t aware of them and either go unsecured or, as previously implied, whip out the credit card.

Microsoft, however, has finally released a full antivirus security suite that is free, as in beer. Dubbed the “Free Security Essentials Antivirus” product, the now-available download from the Microsoft website shouldn’t be confused with the long-available Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool, which was a piece of software distributed by Windows Updates and manual Microsoft downloads that allowed users to remove many bits of nasty software after an infection had already occurred. Also, most versions of the other free varieties of antivirus software is restricted to home users, but according to the writeup at Gizmodo, no such restrictions apply for commercial users*. Bottom line- up, up and away!

The Microsoft Free Secur- aw, heck; I’ll call it FSEA for short- has a couple of features that I really like: It offers rootkit protection, which is a malware infection with a devious ability to attach itself to a user’s hard drive in a manner that even a complete operating system reinstallation can’t remedy, and it also uses CPU throttling, which is a function to ensure that the antivirus scanning does not eat up so much of your system’s resources that it becomes slow or unresponsive while it is running. Lastly, there is no software registration, validation** or expiration dates to worry about (when was the last time you tried to remember the email address you used to register that copy of Symantec you last used a year ago? Frustration, exemplified.)

Now, if you’ll excuse the snark, no one knows malware like Microsoft. I guess that if you’re going to opt for a free antivirus suite from anyone, you’d choose the people who know the “intended victim” the best.

* The Microsoft Corporation still offers commercial products for business and enterprise security products, “Forefront” among them. They don’t want to steal business away from themselves; therefor the download page at Microsoft they offer a link to the Forefront free trial, but it still doesn’t mean that you can’t use FSEA in a business environment.

** Apart from the software checking to make sure you have a legit Windows installation to keep pirated versions from using the product.