Microsoft Security Essentials and AVG Free Antivirus are two antivirus programs that are easy to use especially for beginners. Here’s how the two stack up against one another.
Microsoft Security Essentials
This program is free to use and comes with standard Microsoft systems. The strength of the program is that it’s good at protecting systems that are already clean. So if your system is clean, then the Security Essentials software is reasonable at making sure it stays that way. Many independent antivirus testing labs also give it good ratings. The downside of the program is that the scanning is usually slow. Sometimes there’s some compatibility difficult with the system as well. The program is also less adept at cleaning up systems that already have problems on them.
AVG Free Antivirus
AVG Free is one of the best ways to protect against malware on a clean system. It gets higher ratings on this than Microsoft Security Essentials. It’s also fantastic at cleaning up malware. It even has additional features as well such as the Do Not Track option that helps keep spyware from tracking you, and it interfaces with Facebook. The system has a secure file shredder as well for a bonus, and it’s also free. The only cons of the program is that installation can be a little difficult sometimes on systems that have malware since AVG is so well known by malware makers.
Conclusion
It’s hard to beat free and it’s hard to beat AVG. The AVG Free antivirus package is superior to Microsoft Security Essentials in just about every way. It’s a little better at protecting clean systems, and it’s much better at cleaning infected systems. It also has way more features. The only advantage Security Essentials has is that sometimes it’s easier to install on infected systems, probably because the infections don’t view it as much of a threat.