Microsoft debuts free Morro antivirus package

Posted on 10 Sep 2009 at 16:41

Jon Honeyball on why he's feeling quite confident about Microsoft's free antivirus package

Microsoft's free replacement to OneCare has arrived, and it's a most unfortunately named product if you have a bit of a northern accent.

Codenamed Morro, its proper title is Microsoft Security Essentials, and apparently it's all the same underneath as the big product, but this one is free. It does all the stuff you would expect - antivirus, antispyware, scan-on-demand, plus real-time protection too.

OneCare may have got off to a rather rocky start, but there's no doubting that it ended up being a solid and reliable piece of software, despite all the tyre-kicking, wailing and generally unpleasant behaviour of various competitive firms.

I found that OneCare was my product of choice when faced with an infected desktop PC - it always managed to clean up nasty infestations, browser takeovers and the like. Maybe others could do just as well, but OneCare worked for us.

I've yet to make the time to put Morro through its paces on a properly nasty infected honeypot machine, but I like what I see so far. If you want to get away from some of the more hysterical pay-for security software, then this will be worth a look.

Do I think Microsoft can do security software as well as anyone else? Yes, once it puts its mind to it, and Morro is a pretty good start.

User comments

Ok it might be good - heck it should work, I mean its their OS and so they should be more aware of any vulnerabilities it may have and therefore should be able to fix them - so this is their new way of doing things properly. Its gonna annoy the competition, actually more than likely it will annihilate them - slowly and eventually - just depending on how effective it really is will no longer matter.

By nicomo on 10 Sep 2009

Available in UK? 64 bit

Had a look at the Morro web site for further info mainly re. above, but just tells me that I am not in a country able to receive it as a download.

Any info on above would be interesting.

By timpunshon on 10 Sep 2009

This should help then for the downloads:

http://www.vista123.net/content/microsoft-security
-essentials-morro-download

By lemonlainey on 11 Sep 2009

limited beta

It is in limited beta AFAIK. They had 75,000 or so licences to give away, but they wenz in minutes...

By big_D on 17 Sep 2009

Needs to be less intrusive.

In MY mind both Norton and Mcafee have become far more intrusive on your desktop than most viruses ever will be. Constant bombardments with messages and blocks and plugins means there is very little processor left of your machine to do some actual work. If Microsoft release a version that is very lite and site quietly in the background just doing its job then I'm all for it.

By energy29uk on 30 Sep 2009

re: above comment

if it has a spelling and grammer checker for when i'm writing web comments then that would be good too.

By energy29uk on 30 Sep 2009

re: above comment

if it has a spelling and grammer checker for when i'm writing web comments then that would be good too.

By energy29uk on 30 Sep 2009

toMorro never comes

Microsoft wants to control browser and antivirus markets. It has been shown that it cannot be good at everything. The Firefox and google chrome browers are comparable, and more responsive to bug fixes than explorer 8. Maybe microsoft is better concentrating on what it's good at, and leave this market to open source.

By blackcat on 9 Oct 2009

Morrolite

I'm with Jon, Essentials is small to download, light on resources, very easy to set up and works a treat. The standard virus test file was detected the instant it is was saved to disc. I have happily used F-secure and kaspersky net security packages over recent years, with three-pc licences taken when on half price offers, but no longer require parental control and question the need for software firewall in addition to a good router hardware in place. (Although I am using Comodo for the mo.) That leaves a good antivirus requirement and this latest M'soft offering seems to cut the mustard but it does need more frequent updates than monthly to keep up to date. Good to see the continuing trend to reduce programme resource footprint, even F-Secure 2010 is lighter than 2009 and Windows 7 appears to be going the same way, so maybe the bloatware evolution is coming to a welcome end...

By splat on 15 Oct 2009

toMorro today!

Worth a try:

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

By DasKapital on 29 Oct 2009

toMorro today!

Worth a try:

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

By DasKapital on 29 Oct 2009

I can't believe that happened! All I did was refresh the page (doh!)

By DasKapital on 29 Oct 2009

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Jon Honeyball

Jon is one of the UK's most respected IT journalists and a contributing editor to PC Pro since it launched in 1994. He specialises in Microsoft technologies, including client/server and office automation applications.