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Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have an immediate, pressing need to install a specific patch, don't do it. |
Cranking up my new laptop with Windows 10 Pro version 1809 I see that the Windows Security Center includes among other things antivirus and threat protection via Windows Defender as well as a firewall and network protection. I have read some postive reviews of Windows Defender.
Are Windows Defender and the other security features included with Windows 10 reasonably good substitutes for third-party security software for a personal computer?
In a word – YES.
Defender has matured quite a bit in the last few years and is now a good solution. It is good enough that I believe you do not need a third party a/v program. As part of being careful and somewhat paranoid, I run Malwarebytes free version too and do a scan at least monthly. I also pick a free online scanner from one of the third party vendors and run it monthly too. In security, it is good to get a second and even third opinion as various products can give you different results.
--Joe
I’ve been very happy with just Windows Defender in 1709 and 1803. I upgraded to 1809 at the end of November 2019. Defender does not work right in this version of Windows 10 for me. I’ve had no other problems with 1809. Defender NEVER updates itself in this version of Windows 10. That is not so bad since I always manually update Defender when I first get on the computer each day but, in earlier versions of Windows 10, Defender would update on its own at least one more time each day. But it doesn’t now.
Plus, Defender no longer knows what time zone it is in. It shows the update, when I do it manually each day, as occurring BEFORE the version it updates to was released. That is impossible, of course. What is actually happening is that it can’t tell the time zone I am in but it could with 1709 and 1803 so the problem is 1809. It uses UTC time zone ONLY. Thus I have to mentally add 10 hours from what it shows as the update time when I update. It’s irritating (and embarrassing for Microsoft to make such a basic and fundamental error).
I hope your 1809 doesn’t have the bug.
@b – When I click Start> Settings> Update & Security> Windows Security> Virus & threat protection> the Settings gear on the Virus & threat protection page> About shows “Antimalware Client Version 4.18.1911.3 which is exactly the version that Windows Update said had failed to install. Strange, but I am glad that the antimalware client is up-to-date.
I am just getting started with Windows 10 and discovering where to find all my system information. It is very different than Windows 7. Thanks for providing a roadmap to find this info.
“Are Windows Defender and the other security features included with Windows 10 reasonably good substitutes for third-party security software for a personal computer?”
I agree that Windows Defender has improved significantly, however I’ve been using Bitdefender for many years and still like like it. Admittedly, my loyalty now is probably “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” on my part. That said, BD is smooth, transparent and has a drop dead easy firewall management tool, plus other handy tools I use occasionally.
Desktop Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.
Some say that Defender is now pretty good.
Like you, I have been using a third-party AV that I like – TrendMicro.
Lately, several AVs have had problems with Win10 (Avast, AVG, McAfee, Sophos,etc). They have eventually been worked out.
Many now say, if you don’t want to have Win10 problems, use Defender (which, of course, has not caused problems b/c MS knows what it does).
Does anyone have any experience or recommendations in respect of the Ransomware Protection included with Windows 10 Security please?
I’ve just upgraded one machine from Windows 7 to 10 and am beginning to get the hang of the changes, but there seem to be mixed reviews of Ransomware Protection.
I also upgraded from Windows 7 to 10 and opted to keep Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware (Beta) running alongside Windows Security. So far the two are working well together and I have yet to find any reports of conflicts from others who run both.
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