From the article I posted:
Update: Microsoft has now released a statement, saying “We believe in Microsoft antimalware products and strongly recommend them to our customers, to our friends, and to our families.” Their statement unfortunately doesn’t directly address Holly Stewart’s comments...
Sort of a back-pedal, I guess.
FWIW, at the websites I looked at, MSE is still not getting very good marks. I looked at AV-Test, Toms Hardware, and one other one (maybe LifeHacker?). I think AVG, BitDefender, Kaspersky, Avira, and Panda were some of the top recommendations.
It would be nice if more of them would make a comparison of only the free apps. I've been using free antivirus for years, and haven't had any problems, or at least nothing bad enough I can even remember it. Not that I'd mind paying for it, but it doesn't seem worth it right now. How to Geek fisked various free utilities, and Avira they can only ding with the fact that it offered some free, optional web filter. That "feature" seems to have been removed (or they made it an opt-in), and I've had no problems with Avira since I installed it a few days ago. (I also used it for a year or so, before MSE.)