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Many antivirus vendors announce each new version with great fanfare; not Microsoft. Microsoft Security Essentials 4.0 (free) released so quietly that I almost missed it. In truth, Microsoft doesn't refer to the version number at all, just to "the latest version of Microsoft Security Essentials." There isn't a lot that's new here, and my test results were about the same as before, so perhaps downplaying the new version makes sense.
This product is a straight-up antivirus, not a feature-stuffed suite wannabe. Its main window shows current security status, with a button to resolve any problems. Another button launches an on-demand scan. That's it!
Saved by Windows Defender Offline
Microsoft Security Essentials installed successfully on ten of my twelve malware-infested test systems. Ransomware on one test system made launching normal Windows impossible, and Microsoft Security Essentials won't install in Safe Mode. On the advice of Microsoft Tech Support I downloaded the bootable Windows Defender Offline. A full scan with this tool solved the problem and allowed me to complete the installation.
On another test system, Microsoft Security Essentials refused to update or scan because it claimed the system was not running a valid copy of Windows. In truth, the Windows installation was fine, but malware fooled the antivirus into thinking otherwise. Tech support advised reinstalling Windows, an entirely inappropriate course given that Microsoft's own validation tools report a genuine installation.
I ran a full scan using Windows Defender Offline, but it didn't solve the problem. On this particular system the malware bamboozled Microsoft Security Essentials.
Mediocre Malware Cleanup
On the malware-infested systems where Microsoft Security Essentials installed and ran correctly, a full scan took hours. Scanning my standard clean test system took 72 minutes, about twice the average. And despite these lengthy scans, the cleanup wasn't very thorough.
Microsoft Security Essentials detected 63 percent of the threats, lower than any product tested with the current or previous set of malware samples. It left behind executable files for more than half of those it did detect, and several of them were still running after their alleged removal. Its overall score of 4.3 points for malware cleanup is the lowest of any current product.
40 percent detection of rootkit samples is also a new low. However, Microsoft thoroughly cleaned up all the rootkits it did find, scoring 4.0 points. Quite a few products tested with the previous malware collection scored lower, despite higher detection rates. Even so, I wouldn't rely on Microsoft to clean up a malware-infested system.
For an explanation of the testing and scoring process, see How We Test Malware Removal.
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Here's an odd one: average connection speeds around the globe dropped 14 percent to just 2.3 Mbps during the last quarter of 2011. The drop off remains something of a mystery since the data used to calculate that result doesn't include mobile broadband (so its increased adoption can't be dragging down the whole) and Akamai offers no explanation. Still, it's not time to start panicking, just yet. Even though speeds in the US dropped 5.3 percent from the previous quarter, average connection rates are still up significantly over the previous year. Otherwise, things largely stayed the same. Global broadband adoption was steady at 66 percent and the US continued to trail its friends across the Pacific (by a lot) in the race for the fastest Internet connections.
Interestingly, while the number of broadband connections stayed consistent the number of narrowband lines (under 256 Kbps) declined dramatically. Yet, the percentage of the world's population connected to the web managed to increase 2.1 percent quarter over quarter -- and 13 percent for the year. So, while it may seem that the internet had a temporary set back in Q4 of 2011, the long term trends look good. The number of people online is increasing, the average speeds being pulled down by those people is climbing and the number of folks stuck in the dial up era is dropping. To get a copy of the full report hit up the source.
Internet speeds drop around the world according to Akamai, adoption rate up originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Enlarge Matt Piechota /YouTube Emergency responders are running headlong into a growing phenomenon: roads bottled up by swarms of tornado chasers
Matt Piechota /YouTubeEmergency responders are running headlong into a growing phenomenon: roads bottled up by swarms of tornado chasers
When more than 100 tornadoes raked the Great Plains a couple of weeks ago, emergency responders ran headlong into a growing phenomenon: roads bottled up by swarms of tornado chasers.
On a sunny day in tiny Solomon, Kan., it's hard to imagine anything stirring the place up. A car eases past every so often, but two weeks ago, a powerful tornado was plowing through the countryside. One road was jammed ? and dangerous.
"You couldn't get onto this road for the traffic, and someone was in the southbound lane passing everybody at a high rate of speed," says Chancy Smith, who coordinates emergency response in Dickinson County. Tracking the tornado, sounding the alarm, and helping the victims is his responsibility.
"I get down here by this bridge, and there's cars all over the road, and they are sitting here filming back this way, and so now I turn my front lights on and the siren ? and they just stand there and film," he says.
Matt Piechota/YouTubeStorm chaser Matt Piechota and a friend recorded this tornado just outside Solomon, Kan., a few weeks ago.
A 21-year-old metrology student named Matt Piechota and a buddy had driven more than 1,500 miles in about 24 hours when they shot this tornado just outside Solomon.
"I've always just been into going out and experiencing Mother Nature and being up next to storms," Piechota says. "Being able to chase has always been one of my dreams."
It's a dream a lot more people have been perusing, recently.
"It's a lot of younger chasers, a lot of thrill seekers, and what we call 'Yahoo Chasers' out on the road," says Melanie Metz, one-half of a photographic team called "The Twister Sisters." They were chasing the same storm.
"The tornado itself is already a hazard; now we've got all these crazy aggressive drivers, and people with their cell phones, wanting to get the craziest video they can of the tornado," she says. That's because lots of TV shows and websites are ravenous for the raw footage.
Nobody got badly hurt two weeks ago in central Kansas, but from a vantage point overlooking the interstate, Saline County Sheriff Glen Kochanowski says it could easily have been worse.
"The majority of the people we had were parked along the road, parked on the road, standing in crowds blocking the road. Watching the sky, to see ? 'Oh my!' ? and they're going to get a picture," he says. "And they're not paying attention."
Kochanowski has been a cop around here since 1966, and he's never seen such a mess following tornadoes. Piechota the chaser, though, has seen worse.
"It actually wasn't as bad as it could have been," he says. "I've been on storms with a lot more chase, to where it's just a standstill and it's really bad, but that actually wasn't too bad,"
Bad enough for Kochanowski. He says he's got no qualms with the trained spotters and professional chasers, that they do very important work. But the next time gaggles of amateur gawkers show up, he says he'll be ready for them.
"We're going to have to have extra people, and we're just going to have to start arresting on the spot," he says.
Back in Dickenson County, Chancy Smith says he'll be throwing up roadblocks come next tornado, because it's clear to him where this chaser convergence phenomenon is headed.
"It's like riding a bull. It's not a matter of if you're going to get hurt, it's when you're going to get hurt," he says. "And it's going to happen. Someone's going to get hurt doing this."
And when they do, Smith says he'll dispatch his staff to stop and help, as long has as he has an ambulance that's not tied up in traffic.
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