Microsoft Security Essentials Beta Releases Tuesday

The free Microsoft Antivirus/anti-malware software that has been previously codenamed Morro, will offer virus protection including protection against rootkits and trojans. It will also include antispyware protection as well. The new security product will replace the Windows Live OneCare which Microsoft has already discontinued.

Comparing MSE to Live OneCare, MSE lacks some more advanced features like firewall management, backup and restore, and performance tuning. However, Live OneCare also set users back $49 a year while MSE is available to the user completely free, not too bad of a trade off if you ask me.

The Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) software will run under Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. It will be available for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

While we haven't gotten our hands on the pre-beta version of the software, we have heard that it runs well on systems and doesn't use a lot of system resources. We'll provide a further review and comparison of it with other free Antivirus and products on the market next week.

You can download Microsoft Security Essentials beta for free at Microsoft.com on Tuesday June 23rd, 2009.