Microsoft Defender as Primary Security Question

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I’ve been using Norton products since they released Utilities back in the early 1980s’s.  Lately it seems to be more invasive.

I was considering not renewing my Norton Anti-Virus subscription and going to Microsoft Defender or something different (i.e Bit Defender) as my anti-virus & security.  Symantac seems to have ruined a great product over the years/

I was wondering how safe a home computer is using just Microsoft Defender.  I don’t use my PC as much as I did when I worked on computers 40 hours/week – now that I’m retired.

Just looking for advice here.  Thanks in advance.

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Hi blueboy714:

I used a Norton AV for several years until I purchased my Win 10 laptop a few years ago. I now use Microsoft Defender as my main antivirus and supplement my real-time protection with Malwarebytes Premium. Note, however, that I have a perpetual / lifetime license that hasn’t been offered by Malwarebytes since March 2014 so I don’t have to pay an annual subscription fee. The only thing I miss about Norton is the easy-to-configure Norton Smart Firewall.

I’ve disabled the setting in Malwarebytes Premium at Settings | General | Windows Security Center | Always Register Malwarebytes in the Windows Security Center so that Microsoft Defender still acts as my primary real-time antivirus and Malwarebytes Premium (which also adds supplementary Exploit / Ransomware / Web Protection) acts a a second line of defense to look for threats that might possibly be missed by Microsoft Defender. If I didn’t have a perpetual license for Malwarebytes I probably wouldn’t pay for a Malwarebytes Premium license and would just run the occasional on-demand scan with Malwarebytes Free to check for anything missed by Defender, but that is something I would also recommend for anyone using a third-party antivirus like McAfee, Bitdefender, Norton, etc.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.5487 * Firefox v136.0.1 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.25010.11-1.1.25010.7 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.2.8.173-128.0.5184 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783

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opti1, blueboy714

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Imacri wrote: “The only thing I miss about Norton is the easy-to-configure Norton Smart Firewall.”

I have never used Norton, but if you are now looking at having to use the “not so easy to configure” Windows Firewall (WF), you could “enhance” it by using the free “Windows Firewall Control (WFC)” program, which is now owned and maintained by the same “Malwarebytes” company that owns and maintain the Malwarebytes AntiMalware (MBAM) product.

WFC blocks outgoing accesses unless there is a WF rule to allow it. If there is no explicit block rule, WFC can be configured to give an indication of the outgoing access attempt and from the pop-up (in the lower left of the screen) you can setup either an allow or block WF rule so that you are not nagged again if there is a new outgoing access attempt from the same thing in the future. (Is this similar to the “easy to configure Norton Firewall”?)

There are or were other similar WF enhancers, but I have stuck with WFC because it is still maintained and Malwarebytes seem to be a company who know what they doing

Just a thought. Garbo.

PS: I also have a lifetime MBAM Premium license. I run it alongside the free Panda Dome AV which is (or was last time I checked some time ago now) lighter on resources (memory and processor cycles – causing PC sluggishness) on my older ~2012 PC.

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opti1

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Thanks @lmacri – I already use free versions of Malware Bytes and Super Antivirus along with Norton AV.  Might be worth it to see if I can hit a deal like you mentioned.  I’ve done that with other software in the past.

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blueboy714 wrote:

or something different (i.e Bit Defender)

I’ve used Bitdefender for years and still very satisfied with it.  I have it on 10 devices including two android cell phones (S24 series).

For a short time about a year ago I used only Microsoft Defender, but found the real-time monitoring functions lacking compared to Bitdefender, and I like the seamless protection across non-windows devices Bitdefender offers. That said, MS Defender has come a long ways since it’s early days and there are several credible AW users that swear by it.

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I have always used the MS antivirus product (Security Essentials, Defender, whatever the name du jour is/was) on my Windows computers, and it has worked very well. I was the sole user of a Win 10 computer that belonged to an organiation I volunteered for that used Norton. The organization decided what security products to use. I forget the exact name of the product but it cost about $100/year. It was easy enough to use and worked well but it got to be extremely annoying because they were always trying to upsell to one of their other products. When I left the organization I recommended they save the money and just use the MS product.

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DrBonzo wrote:

I have always used the MS antivirus product (Security Essentials, Defender, whatever the name du jour is/was) on my Windows computers, and it has worked very well. I was the sole user of a Win 10 computer that belonged to an organiation I volunteered for that used Norton. The organization decided what security products to use. I forget the exact name of the product but it cost about $100/year. It was easy enough to use and worked well but it got to be extremely annoying because they were always trying to upsell to one of their other products. When I left the organization I recommended they save the money and just use the MS product.

That’s exactly what Norton is doing now.  4 or 5 times a day. I’m getting sick of the popups.

Custom Build - Intel i5 9400 5 Core CPU & ASUS TUF Z390 Plus Motherboard
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Dell Laptop - Inspiron 15 11th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 Processor
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blueboy714 wrote:

That’s exactly what Norton is doing now. 4 or 5 times a day. I’m getting sick of the popups.

Hi blueboy714:

Norton 360 doesn’t really exist as a unique product anymore since parent company Gen Digital began sharing technologies between their subsidiaries.  It essentially became an Avast AV re-branded as a Norton product in September 2024.

Norton abandoned the Norton scan engine and has been using an Avast scan engine since the Norton v24 product line described in the 10-Sep-2024 product announcement Introducing Norton Security v.24! was released. See the 17-Sep-2024 HackerDose article One Less Scanner? Norton Antivirus Jumps on Avast’s Engine.

See Specialist17’s May 24, 2024 topic Norton Security now silently installs Avast software? for a discussion on this topic.
———–
Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.5487 * Firefox v136.0.1 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.25010.11-1.1.25010.7 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.2.8.173-128.0.5184 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783

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lmacri wrote:

blueboy714 wrote:

That’s exactly what Norton is doing now. 4 or 5 times a day. I’m getting sick of the popups.

Hi blueboy714:

Norton 360 doesn’t really exist as a unique product anymore since parent company Gen Digital began sharing technologies between their subsidiaries.  It essentially became an Avast AV re-branded as a Norton product in September 2024.

Norton abandoned the Norton scan engine and has been using an Avast scan engine since the Norton v24 product line described in the 10-Sep-2024 product announcement Introducing Norton Security v.24! was released. See the 17-Sep-2024 HackerDose article One Less Scanner? Norton Antivirus Jumps on Avast’s Engine.

See Specialist17’s May 24, 2024 topic Norton Security now silently installs Avast software? for a discussion on this topic.
———–
Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.5487 * Firefox v136.0.1 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.25010.11-1.1.25010.7 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.2.8.173-128.0.5184 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783

Yeah – I knew about the Norton/Avast thing – that’s part of the problem.

Custom Build - Intel i5 9400 5 Core CPU & ASUS TUF Z390 Plus Motherboard
Edition Windows 10 Home
Version 22H2

Dell Laptop - Inspiron 15 11th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 Processor
Edition Windows 11 Home
Version 23H2

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Garbo wrote:

I have never used Norton, but if you are now looking at having to use the “not so easy to configure” Windows Firewall (WF), you could “enhance” it by using the free “Windows Firewall Control (WFC)” program, which is now owned and maintained by the same “Malwarebytes” company that owns and maintain the Malwarebytes AntiMalware (MBAM) product.

Isn’t Malwarebytes/Binsoft WFC still in beta testing?  The last time I read about it it wasn’t an official release yet.

Custom Build - Intel i5 9400 5 Core CPU & ASUS TUF Z390 Plus Motherboard
Edition Windows 10 Home
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Dell Laptop - Inspiron 15 11th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 Processor
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Malwarebytes bought Binisoft in 2018. I probably found out about this from reading https://www.ghacks.net/2018/08/01/windows-firewall-control-is-now-free/  and started using it soon after. (I had previously used something similar called “Windows Firewall Notifier”, but from memory WFN was no longer being supported.) I started using it in Windows 8.1 (W8.1) and I’ve continued in W10 in my main PC (and in my W11 test partition even though this old PC does not officially support W11).

Malwarebytes release versions every few months. The latest which I have used since then is version 6.12.0.0 from Oct 2024. (There was a previous version 6.11.0.0 whose installer I had downloaded in May 2024, to give an idea of the product update rate.)

I normally download from the DownloadCrew site (out of habit – nothing special), but it is also available at MajorGeeks. (Both still claim that it is owned by Binisoft, but that is out of date information.)

A search for WFC at Malwarebytes themselves, gives a link to a Malwarebytes forum at https://forums.malwarebytes.com/topic/296798-malwarebytes-windows-firewall-control-wfc/   If you scroll down to the end, details and a download link are in the final comment from 18 Oct 2024.

HTH. Garbo.

 

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blueboy714

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