Microsoft is on a security jag of late. A little while back the company released beta of a very good antispyware program. Then, a week or so ago, it followed that up with the release of a truly terrible piece of anti-malware software.

The software, Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool, is close to being worthless. Its scans your system for only a handful of malicious software, then deletes what it find. But it offers no real-time protection, and ignores the many thousands of other pests making the rounds.

Worse yet, the software is part of XP’s automatic updates feature. But when automatic updates downloaded it to my PC, I was never able to find it. I had to instead go online and hunt it down.

Microsoft plans to release a new version of the software every month, and push it to everyone via automatic updates. (Good luck finding it after it downloads, though.) I don’t know why the company bothers; it’s hard to know why this software needs to exist. Most likely, it’s so that Microsoft can say that it’s doing something about security without having to actually make an effort.

Microsoft is smarter than this; its very good antispyware software proves that. The company should either beef up its virus-killer and turn it into a truly useful program, or just kill it altogether.

What do you think about Microsoft’s virus-killer?