Windows Firewall & Microsoft Security Essentials MSE

olamoree · 01. Oct 2010, 02:55 PM

Recently, a VERY interesting article by Guru Fred Langa indicates that he has been "testing" WFW in combination with MSE on several desktops and two laptops 24/7 with the lappys covering thousands of miles thru airports, cafes, wild WiFi HotSpots, etc. for more than SIX MONTHS... without problems. Having followed a lot of advice from F. Langa over the past dozen or more years, I have gingerly made the recommended installations and uninstallations and so far... maybe three weeks... no problems. I have now put WFW/MSE on one desktop, one lappy and two netbooks. I notice especially that the netbooks are not slowed down as by other FW, AV, AM, HIPS proggys as I noticed before the installs. As he recommends, you can make the transition at your own speed, keeping some of your previous "anti" proggys until you are satisfied that the WFW/MSE combination is giving you the protection that you expect. To further boost your confidence in the combination (and mine too) you can run one of the many online "scanners" to see if all is working well.

A couple of heads ups: Before trying the transition, make sure that your machine is free of already hidden bots, spyware, virus and such. Also, to download and install MSE, you are subjected to verification of your XP/Vista/Win7 for authenticity... sometimes a hurdle for lovers of freeware.

Vista and Win7 have "two-way" firewalls but XP doesn't, and as my desktop is an XP SP3 machine, I still see no problems so far. Also, I still have ThreatFire running on all machines "just in case" for 0-day threats, which, if I still have a blank log file for it in the future, it could be uninstalled.

What do you think?

bo.elam · 01. Oct 2010, 03:11 PM

Thats what I am using. I feel safer using MSE than with my previous AV,
Avast/Avira. Never been too happy about using a FW other than Windows.
But that's not enough so if I was you I ll keep Threatfire and start using
Sandboxie. I don't know if you have tried Sandboxie before but I can tell
you that if you start using it, you ll never get infected again.
Like you I also have a XP SP3 and that combination works perfectly on it,
try it.

Bo

01. Oct 2010, 02:55 PM	#1 (permalink)
olamoree Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 2	Windows Firewall & Microsoft Security Essentials MSE Recently, a VERY interesting article by Guru Fred Langa indicates that he has been "testing" WFW in combination with MSE on several desktops and two laptops 24/7 with the lappys covering thousands of miles thru airports, cafes, wild WiFi HotSpots, etc. for more than SIX MONTHS... without problems. Having followed a lot of advice from F. Langa over the past dozen or more years, I have gingerly made the recommended installations and uninstallations and so far... maybe three weeks... no problems. I have now put WFW/MSE on one desktop, one lappy and two netbooks. I notice especially that the netbooks are not slowed down as by other FW, AV, AM, HIPS proggys as I noticed before the installs. As he recommends, you can make the transition at your own speed, keeping some of your previous "anti" proggys until you are satisfied that the WFW/MSE combination is giving you the protection that you expect. To further boost your confidence in the combination (and mine too) you can run one of the many online "scanners" to see if all is working well. A couple of heads ups: Before trying the transition, make sure that your machine is free of already hidden bots, spyware, virus and such. Also, to download and install MSE, you are subjected to verification of your XP/Vista/Win7 for authenticity... sometimes a hurdle for lovers of freeware. Vista and Win7 have "two-way" firewalls but XP doesn't, and as my desktop is an XP SP3 machine, I still see no problems so far. Also, I still have ThreatFire running on all machines "just in case" for 0-day threats, which, if I still have a blank log file for it in the future, it could be uninstalled. What do you think?

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01. Oct 2010, 03:11 PM	#2 (permalink)
bo.elam Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 1,224	Thats what I am using. I feel safer using MSE than with my previous AV, Avast/Avira. Never been too happy about using a FW other than Windows. But that's not enough so if I was you I ll keep Threatfire and start using Sandboxie. I don't know if you have tried Sandboxie before but I can tell you that if you start using it, you ll never get infected again. Like you I also have a XP SP3 and that combination works perfectly on it, try it. Bo