So what can I say that you haven't heard before? Beware the mighty virus, watch out for the malignant malware.... You get the picture firewall this, Anti-virus that use X product over Y product, protect those ports. But when you boil it all down how does that all help you? And more importantly what does it all mean? So for those who know that the Internet just is and always has been (Yes I am talking to those born after '94), do you actually understand how it all works? I'll give you a primer, hopefully, keeping it all under a paragraph and without too much technical jargon.

So the Internet is a big pipe of data (data being web pages, word documents, pictures, videos....) that consists of smaller pipes. Each of these smaller pipes contain specific data, for example, web pages travel down the pipe called port 80, email travels down a different one called port 25 and port 110.  Computer games use lots of different port numbers to ensure that the data they send doesn't conflict with other data. After all, your game of World of Warcraft doesn't need to try and read your email nor does your email want to talk to the World of Warcraft program.

So what does this mean for security, most people know they need a firewall, but they don't know why. A firewall is a program that is designed to shut off those pipes. If you no longer wanted web pages, then you could get your firewall to shut off port 80. Of course, that would make this blog a very hard thing to read, so don't do it :) and your general web surfing would no longer exist. 

Virus's as you know make life really painful in both the real world and digital.  Let's stick to digital, a virus makes a change to the correct way a program should work, it could slow your opening and closing of files down, it could re-write some of the information.  Now days they use up your bandwidth by sending information from someone else from your machine.  Not pleasant but then again, if they were meant to be pleasant they wouldn't have been written in the first place. So this is where anti-virus comes to the forefront. Anti-virus is designed to detect and repair infected files, real time protection on anti-virus means that every file you open gets quickly scanned by the anti-virus program to ensure that it isn't infected.  A daily scan is a good way of ensuring that your computer system maintains a clean environment.

So that information is all well and good, but so what...or more importantly why did I go to the effort of typing it up?

This would be why. Microsoft has released their Security Essentials software.   From the Website (http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/) "

Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free* download from Microsoft that is simple to install, easy to use, and always kept up to date so you can be assured your PC is protected by the latest technology. It’s easy to tell if your PC is secure — when you’re green, you’re good. It’s that simple.

Microsoft Security Essentials runs quietly and efficiently in the background so that you are free to use your Windows-based PC the way you want—without interruptions or long computer wait times. "

I've just installed it on my Windows 7 machine. It's the way I want my Firewall/Anti virus/ Anti malware software to be, quick and simple. I don't need it to be complex, I do enough things in my life to make that complex, the last thing I need is an annoying piece of software to amp up the complexity of my computing life. Thankfully the software is a breeze and it's good enough that the guys on Slashdot, who are known to a majority Microsoft haters, actually think the software is pretty good. Article here, just remember the comments might have changed since the last time I looked at it. But then again, if you have a security firm like Symantec trash talking the product to start with, it must be scaring them something silly.  Also check out the Ars Technica review on the program here.

When the program looks like this, you know you're on a winner due to the simple and easy interface that it has. Way to go Microsoft.   

Did I mention the price tag:::::: Free!!!!!   

So where do you get it from?

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

Direct download links:

Win XP

Win Vista/7 32 bit

Win Vista/7 64 bit

So what are you waiting for....go. get. install.