aSymmetrics

Size matters

With a download of only 4.8MB I was actually expecting a web installer (one which would download the rest of the software once running, much like DirectX's web installer and Windows Live setup), but it seems that pretty much everything is in it. Extracted there's no more than 13MB (x64 version) on your computer, really impressive for a piece of Microsoft software.

Edit (October 24): Could've known that it should be more, if only the definition files. The folder Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware in the common profile directory (%allusersprofile%) contains of the definition update plus a backup of the previously downloaded definition files, totalling to a rough 93MB. The (textfile) logs have grown to about 9MB in less than a month.

Update (November 9): Quite remarkable: MS Security Essentials has already taken a steady lead in a poll held by Lifehacker on the five best antivirus applications.

I just got the new March issue of C't which finally contained another antivirus software review. For me personally, a virusscanner is unnecessary: there's no better protection than using a third-party browser (Opera) and your brain. However, you can't leave other people's computers completely unprotected, so an on-access scanner, at the least for viruses, in the best case also for spyware/adware, is a prerequisite when configuring one's computer. Since there's absolutely no software that's able to identify almost any virus, and protection rates are highly fluctuating between versions and definition files of the respective products, one of the most important criteria for me is the speed of the on-access scanner.