The Geeky Brit

A few months ago I switched from using ZoneAlarm Security suite to Windows Live OneCare. My main motivation was the cost, as I had just bought my lovely wife a laptop, and was not too thrilled about spending more money on a separate security suite for that pc. At the time the I switched I got 90 days free, and so I thought hey, why not.

Since then our main home pc has become so slow, that my wife has stopped using it. Then today I read on the BBC that it has failed *another* security test. Microsoft’s response: “We are working on it”.

Now I am asking myself just what the heck was I thinking signing up for this service? I admit, I was drawn by the “all in one solution”, that backs up your hard drive, defrags your disk, and scans for and protects against viruses and spyware.

But as it turns out, it only backs up to external peripheral attached storage (not to an internal, or network based drive), it usually fails to defrag the disk completely, and the virus and spyware scans miss many malicious items.

I am currently scanning this pc using Trend’s online scanner, and once it is completed I will publish the results. Who wants to wager my pc caught something OneCare was meant to protect me from?

They are so close on this one, it is almost really good – I love the UI, and the integration. But when it comes to Security Software there is no second place. It has to work, all the time.