Microsoft Security Essentials provides protection against computer viruses comparable to other free anti-virus programs. AVG Free has been very popular over the years and has been joined by many of the top security providers including McAfee and Norton who provide free versions of their entries in the field.

McAfee anti-virus users running Windows XP with service pack 3 may have been shocked to see their systems repeatedly rebooting or coming up with the dreaded blue screen yesterday. McAfee engineers identified a new threat and crafted an update released Wednesday afternoon. The new definitions recognized a core Windows system file, svchost.exe, as a threat bringing normal operations to a halt.

The Conficker Worm is no April Fools joke. It's serious enough for Microsoft to offer $250,000 to anyone tracking down the perpetrator. The worm may already be planted on as many as 12 million systems waiting to to do it's damage until a specified date; in the case of the Conficker that is believed to be tomorrow, April 1st.

Desktop Security is available from an array of vendors with many supplying venerable virus and firewall protection. Comparing Desktop Security Suites we found big differences in how other elements such as spam blocking and parental controls are implemented.