Microsoft this week rolled out a new subscription-based, Windows-centric, antimalware tool called Forefront Client Security (FCS). The company touts FCS as significant upgrade from its freely available Windows Defender program mainly due to an accompanying centralized management console.

In our Clear Choice Test of the newly minted FCS code, we found it is indeed an easy-to-administer desktop-based antimalware tool with helpful reports and painless deployment. The FCS Security Agent software stymied spyware and other loopy miscreants at an industry average rate in our tests (see How we did it).

However, FCS as a desktop malware tool is not as effective as a gateway-based tool, mobile users have to return to the office to acquire administrative changes, and it doesn’t have the sort of selective blocking capabilities offered with newer versions of competitive products.

Additionally, the FCS Security Agent code does not thwart spam or phishing attempts. In Microsoft’s ForeFront security scheme, detection of these things are handled at the gateway level with the company’s ForeFront security add-on to Exchange 2007. (See the most recent test.)

ANTISPYWARE FOREFRONT CLIENT SECURITY Microsoft

3.6

Price: Management Console $2,500 per server, per year. Security Agent $12.71 per user, per year. Pros: Management Console eases administrative workload; administrative interface is easy to use and intuitive; Security Agent runs reliably. Cons: Malware detection is average; no support for Windows NT, 98 and ME; no categorization of Web sites for filtering purposes. The breakdown Identifying and thwarting malware 30% 3 Scoring Key: 5: Exceptional 4: Very good 3: Average 2: Below average 1: Subpar or not available Performance 20% 5 Ease of use 20% 4 Reports 20% 3 Documentation/installation 10% 3 TOTAL SCORE 3.6

Click to see: NetResults: Forefront Client Security