Digital Home Thoughts: Microsoft Wants To Protect Your Computer For Free With Morro

"Goodbye Windows Defender, hello Windows Security Essentials. The new antivirus and antimalware package that Microsoft's been working on for the past year is ready for its semi-official unveiling today. Eager malware-thwarters from the United States, Brazil, and Israel will get first dibs on the public beta of the free software, available for both 32- and 64-bit installations of Windows XP, Vista, and 7."

It has been a long time coming, but it looks like Microsoft will finally be entering the anti-bad-stuff market in force. Morro has been released in beta to select markets and eventually it will be offered for free to all Windows users. Morro pretty much replaces Windows Live OneCare, which was a paid service that offered all manner of security tools to keep your computer safe. Like OneCare, Morro will protect your computer against viruses and malware, and tap into a large online database that is contributed to and used by other Morro users. I think it is great to see Microsoft stepping up to help protect their customers for no additional cost. Sure, one can argue that if Microsoft were that friendly, they would not develop software that would need protection, but having worked in the software industry in various ways, I know that just is not practical, if even possible. All operating systems are subject to exploits, and I consider it a very unfortunate reality that as customers, we have to keep our guard up to protect our computers. At least in this case, it will be free.