Windows Defender – yes or no?

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Hello. Was wondering what is everyones’ opinion is of Windows Defender?  Do you rely on other antivirus software if you only need 1 PC  protected ?

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See this thread https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/seeking-info-on-malwarebytes/ and a post by @pkcano #2296789
 

I run Norton AV. I’ve never used Windows Defender so I can’t give a comparison. Have had a good experience with Norton on various Windows systems for many years.

MacOS iPadOS and sometimes SOS

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Thanks, the reason I was asking is that it seems that the antivirus packages include VPN, encryption,  etc.  And I wasn’t sure if it got in the way of trying to troubleshoot any windows operating system problems that could arise.

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I’ve quit using everything except Defender. Several years ago it was lagging a number of other AV products in terms of effectiveness, but it seems to have caught up.
OTOH, most of the other commercial AV products have become extremely invasive, and try to do everything for everyone, and ALL THE TIME. They’ve become a problem in their own right.

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I agree. For example, Avast is intrusive and obnoxious. I’ve decided to uninstall and go to Defender on all my machines.

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rc primak

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On a couple of Vista machines and several Win 7 machines I used (and am still keeping updated on the Win 7) Microsoft Security Essentials. Perhaps somewhat loosely speaking, what was Microsoft Security Essentials in Vista and Win 7 is basically now Defender on Win 8.1 and 10. I am also using Defender on a Win 8.1 machine. So I’ve got about 15 to 20 computer years experience with it. The only problem I’ve ever had is that on two occasions it refused to complete either a quick scan or a full scan. Each time Microsoft quickly became aware of the bug and had it fixed in a matter of hours.

It offers relatively good real time protection, does moderately quick scans, is easy to set up and schedule, and is unobtrusive. You can’t beat the price (free), and perhaps best of all, it’s never been involved with Microsoft security patches/updates not working. Some of the other antivirus software has been known to cause big problems with MS patches.

I have a little experience with Norton on Vista, found it to be OK but nothing justifying its purchase price. I also have a little experience with Kaspersky and McAfee on Win 7, both of which drove me nuts. Kaspersky was constantly updating and tying up the whole computer in the process, and McAfee was constant throwing pop-up windows in my face reminding me of some silly thing or another or trying to get me to buy something.

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I used to use McAfee on three machines but have now switched to Windows Defender which gives me no problems and appears to do the job well with much less hassle than McAfee

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jburk07

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My vote for Defender. This year we went from Sophos to Defender also in the enterprise environment and all seems to work well. Its up to date, and built into Windows, so it does not block updates, like Sophos and Avast did for example.
Not sure if Home version has “the same strong Defender”, but I like that is free. So..

Do you rely on other antivirus software if you only need 1 PC protected ?

I rely on Defender even for my clients.

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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jburk07

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[Alex5723]

If you are after a free mediocre A/V stay with Defender as other free A/V are not better.
If you are after securing your PC go for a real paid A/V like Kaspersky, Bitdefender.. both are at the top of A/V software lists for many years.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Alex5723.

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I used to use Avast, in the olden days, before they showed their true colours

Now I only use Defender. My personal browsing and d/loading habits are conservative in the extreme, so I don’t know how effective it would be for those who like to live life on the edge. All I can say is that the few times it HAS flagged things up, I’ve always thought: “Yeah, you’re probably right”

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jburk07

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[firstmerk]

I used free, then paid Avast for many years. THEN they sold off their client database AND kept nagging me to get still other products. It became a pain, and now was shady to boot.

Defender used to not get a great rep compared to the ‘big guys’. OTOH, those same AV products were become HUGE and could also be obnoxious, trying to do everything for everybody all the time.

This is what I used to make my decision to go to Defender a couple years ago:
https://www.av-comparatives.org/comparison/
It’s a very extensive site.

I’ve had no problems with Defender, nor any known infections.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by firstmerk.

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rc primak, jburk07

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I’ve used Defender exclusively for real=time protection on Win 7 (or whatever is as called on 7) & Win 10. Whatever scans Windows 10 schedules I let run. I supplement that with a periodic scan, usually monthly, using free Malwarebytes for a second opinion. When I do the Malwarebytes scan, I follow that with a full scan by WD. Then even less frequently, usually quarterly, I pick one of the free scans available from one of the paid services as yet another look.

That way I’m using multiple a/v engines since they all detect things slightly differently.

--Joe

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I used Microsoft Security Essentials together with Malwarebytes Premium lifetime license since Windows 7, and the only difference with Windows 8,8.1 and now 10 is the name change to Windows Defender.  I’ve never had any difficulty, never a virus, no malware, PUP’s or PUM’s. All the automatic scans run as well as some extras I have set up in Task Scheduler.

When Malwarebytes went to a yearly subscription, I stayed with the lifetime license and did not upgrade.  It is still being kept up to date, now on version 4.2.0.82, last signature update today at 1:38 PM.  Windows Defender and Malwarebytes Premium (lifetime license) work very well together.

 

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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rc primak, WSveegertx, RockFox, jburk07, doriel

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I use Win Defender. Was using bitdefender for a while but then it started choking my computer so I dropped it.

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jburk07

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Malware bytes and ms security essentials (whatever they call it now) have worked for me since win 7.

 

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rc primak

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[MHCLV941]

anonymous wrote:

My personal browsing and d/loading habits are conservative

The problem is that (1) you have no control over the web sites you frequent, which could be compromised and as dangerous as a more “wild” one; (2) where you want to go may not always be what your fingers type; (3) you might make a mistake as to the correct URL (Google whitehouse.com vs whitehouse.gov)

I like having a more robust security suite than Defender.

 

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by MHCLV941.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by MHCLV941.

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Links / ads in safe websites can also be problematic. See this thread for details of a compromised site.

cheers, Paul

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Linda2019, rc primak, Cybertooth

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[MHCLV941]

MHCLV941 wrote:

anonymous wrote:

My personal browsing and d/loading habits are conservative

The problem is that (1) you have no control over the web sites you frequent, which could be compromised and as dangerous as a more “wild” one; (2) where you want to go may not always be what your fingers type; (3) you might make a mistake as to the correct URL (Google whitehouse.com vs whitehouse.gov)

I like having a more robust security suite than Defender.

 

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by MHCLV941.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by MHCLV941.

(Forgot to log in when I was posting the bit about conservative browsing habits)

I’m sure you’re correct in general terms, but my conservative browsing habits are based around a very small list of respectable sites whose links I have pre-saved (Wikipedia, Woody’s, etc), so I feel that I do have control over which sites I frequent

I also never follow unknown links when browsing more generally, and I use an ad blocker to ensure that I never even see ads let alone follow them (as much as anything because whatever it is that they want to sell me, I don’t WANT it). I also download very little, apart from content from trusted sites, and I always virus check before using it anyway

I’m sure it’s possible that I’ll let my guard down some day and get stung by the bad guys, but I feel fairly confident in using Windows Defender to protect me. I was going through some old backups the other day, and it flagged up a couple of PUPs lurking among some old junk I had squirrelled away on the backup disk (one of which was PKZip, which, like Avast, I used to use until they showed their true colours, at which point I abandoned it)

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by NaNoNyMouse.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by Kirsty.

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rc primak

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[rc primak]

What protects you these days from rogue web sites is no longer your antivirus program.

The major web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari) have stepped up their efforts to prevent malware from getting down to your PC from malicious web sites and infected good web sites. While nowhere near perfect, these advances have convinced me that the web protections offered by paid and free third party AV/AM programs and suites are just sales tactics, not real value-added protections.

So I no longer consider protection from browser-based attacks to be a selling point for third-party antimalware programs or suites. I do use some browser add-ons to block annoying ads and to prevent some of the more obvious web based risks. But other than that, I just use Windows Defender, Malwarebytes Free, ADWCleaner (from Malwarebytes) and the built-in protections of Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge (and Firefox for Linux).

If I want to be even safer, I go over to my Linux partition and work from there. My travel notebook is either Chromebook or Fedora Linux (dual-boot), both of which are more secure inherently than Windows. This extends all the way up to how web browsers operate under different OSes.

But when I’m doing Zoom meetings with Windows users, I prefer to be in Windows, so that I can show people what their own Windows desktops and applications might look like when we are troubleshooting or demonstrating. So I have to keep Windows 10 Pro up to snuff for security.

-- rc primak

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by rc primak.

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Linda2019

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If I want to be even safer, I go over to my Linux partition and work from there. My travel notebook is either Chromebook or Fedora Linux (dual-boot), both of which are more secure inherently than Windows. This extends all the way up to how web browsers operate under different OSes.

Windows 10 isn’t the most vulnerable operating system – it’s actually Linux

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doriel

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Maybe it is, but most malware and other harmful codes are MOSTLY targeted to Windows customers.

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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NaNoNyMouse wrote:

I’m sure you’re correct in general terms, but my conservative browsing habits are based around a very small list of respectable sites whose links I have pre-saved (Wikipedia, Woody’s, etc), so I feel that I do have control over which sites I frequent

I understand your thinking and I certainly don’t fault it.  That said, without your actually saying so, I suspect no one but you ever uses your computer.   If you were to allow children or grandchildren access to the machine, all bets would be off.  Bet there, done that – or, more correctly, watched it being done!

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NaNoNyMouse

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[WSeikelein]

@MHCLV941:

Been there, done it. But done it only for a day or two.

Then I created a non-admin account that ever since I name GRANDKIDS. I have that on all our computers, no admin rights and ONLY Firefox with “uBlock Origin”, WOT and sice it came out “Facebook Container”. The price my wife and I have to pay is not telling them our passwords and logging off before we get up from any of our computers. Never had a problem with this setup; common sense and discipline do it, for me/us at least.

Definitely NOT Google Chrome for the g-kids, whatever they say.

If I interpret the 941 in your handle correctly I am 539 :-))

 

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by WSeikelein. Reason: Typo

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rc primak

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[rc primak]

If you were to allow children or grandchildren access to the machine, all bets would be off.  Bet there, done that – or, more correctly, watched it being done!

When children are involved, parental controls are necessary. Also, each child should have a separate account, all Standard Users. There are third party programs which make parental controls easier to manage than the built-in Windows 10 parental controls.

For Google Kids, getting them Chromebooks will usually solve most problems. Chromebooks can be further protected with their own parental controls.

-- rc primak

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by rc primak.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by rc primak.

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[WSeikelein]

I come a bit late to the discussion but here I go:

Over the last 15 years, 10 of them as the “computer guru” on a monthly call-in talk show on a local radio station, I have assembled over 10,000 customers.

Yes, in Wind XP times it was reasonable if not necessary to use third party AV programs and for times there were some IMHO quite usable free programs around.  But their makers all too soon learned to monetize their software and overly burdened the programs with too much added functionality. They did it to the point that systems like those from Avast and AVG became major workloads for normal, below average configured cheap home computers. These cheap computers were about 90% of the machines out in actual households!

I have seen more than a few computers that began to “run normally”again after removing all but one of the installed “free” AV programs.

I was lucky to mostly have avoided Vista but since Windows 7 I have recommended to RUN ONLY MS Security Essentials and eventually use Malwarebytes occasionally run manually. The same stayed true for MS Defender on Win 8 and 10.

Please be aware that the vast majority of my customers called themselves computer illiterate – and they were/are.

With a little coaxing and very few explanations nearly all of them have over many years managed to keep their computers “mean, lean and clean” without needing to upgrade for more CPU power just to cater to a bloated third party AV system.

My vote clearly goes to MS Defender plus eventually an occasional manually run scan with Malwarebytes Free. If you apply a bit of common sense while surfing the web and while reading emails you’ll be fine with Defender and Malwarebytes.

Although the sad truth is that common sense ain’t that common; or is it?  ‘-)

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by WSeikelein. Reason: Typo

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Malwarebytes carries a very small overhead nowadays (in their subscription version at least) and does a pretty fast scan. I let it scan daily and also use Defender.

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rc primak

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[WSbrush-head]

I’m an oldie (75). I’ve been using computers for 52 years (before PC’s of any stripe). I spent 42 of those years earning a crust at what started off as data processing & evolved into information technology. I could be accused of triggering a problem for myself here but here goes, I’ve never had a virus on a home machine (currently using Windows 10 2004, & every Windows version back to the dos application days, ipad, Android, Linux & a number of others I can’t now remember) except where I have deliberately introduced it to help someone else.

I use Malwarebytes & Windows Defender. I have in the past used Windows Defender solo & when it was a choice of installation with Microsoft Security essentials, “naked” no protection at all except my own knowledge & behaviour.

In the commercial environment life is harder. This is because the majority of people who use computers in the workplace will not take basic precautions. They don’t have to do anything special when using a photocopier or some other piece of equipment so it’s unlikely they’ll remember to take precautions with a computer. This is where you need a good AV product & which one is changing all the time as the threats change.

All in all I’d say even if you let Microsoft look after things you’ll be OK providing you don’t do the things that encourage the spread of malware.

I’m sure that people here who have an IT background will be aware of PEBCAK. (no prizes).

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by WSbrush-head.

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I’m an oldie also (70). Started my IT career on mainframes as an operator for 3 years and spent the following 45 years as a software engineer also finishing my career on mainframes (using any platform from embedded micros to micros to mini to PC computers between the mainframe stints).

I use subscription MWB and it runs a daily scan and also Defender.

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Enterprise security is a whole other area. Much more needs to be done in a commercial setting than we do at home with our own PCs.

-- rc primak

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I use Malwarebytes subscription and Defender now.

I got so tired of the nag screens from Panda and other “free” AV software versions that I gave up on them.

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I’m sure there are a LOT of us oldies on here (I’m 72, and started IT on an IBM 360). While I’ve run Norton AV on my home systems, and Symantec Endpoint Protection on the corporate, Non-Profit side. Now that Symantec has sold their AV division, I’m running MWB Premium on my three main home systems, along with Windows Defender, and it’s someone else’s headache to deal with the corporate world. >;-)

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rc primak, WSJCitizen

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[_Reassigned Account]

Yep, started on Bull/GE Gamma30 machines but after that on Honeywell mainframes and IBM 360/30 & 360/50. Then, started writing CICS programs under CICS (in fact Restart/Recovery before CICS even had it) at Allied Breweries in Burton Upon Stench (so called for the 2 breweries brewing 6 days per week between them, a pork pie factory, a yeast factory (the worst smell) and Marston’s brewery burning old tires during the winter power cuts). Those were the days <g>.

Retired handling communications software under CICS for custom communications over TCP/IP and MQ Series running under IBM Z mainframes.

I gave up on Norton many years ago (just got too big and cumbersome). I never used McAfee at home.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by _Reassigned Account.

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wavy

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Way, way back when Malwarebytes first came on the scene I installed it I think on XP.  I had very little RAM and HDD so I decided to uninstall it.  During the uninstall I was offered a lifetime license for $9.95 and I went for it.  Great move on my part.  I have transferred the license to each new PC with absolutely no problems.  I keep getting the most up-to-date versions.

Probably the best software purchase I ever made.  Sadly, they no longer offer lifetime subscriptions.

 

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Yep, I have 2 of those lifetime subscriptions too. When I bought the laptop, I used the free one for several years but then when I retired I started doing some consulting with companies working (or trying to) with the agency that I worked for at the time I retired. At that time I opted to take a 2 year subscription ($69.95 in May 2019) for the laptop.

I have emails from MWB going back to 2011 but think I subscribed before that. They stopped lifetime licenses in 2014.

I have had several occasions to contact MWB over false hits. They are quick to respond. Excellent software.

 

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Volkstoy wrote:

Norton AV on my home systems, and Symantec Endpoint Protection on the corporate

Sounds awfully familiar!   The Symantec breakup to LifeLock and Broadcom was the most incompetent corporate divorce I’ve ever seen.   Broadcom killed the Symantec channel before – months before – they had a way to sell licenses for it and, while they did extend customers’ existing licenses, they did so after the fact and did not make any effort to tell anyone.

I have yet to understand the logic of the breakup.   Norton and Lifelock have some marketing synergy but little or no technical common ground.  Broadcom buying Symantec (the business side) makes even less sense.

The most damaging bit of stupidity is the diminishing of the research and engineering resources that made the products worthwhile in the first place.   Unless the divorce did not impact that part of the operations, neither product can be as good in the future as it was before.

So, I and all my clients are now using BitDefender and not looking back…

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OK, I’m older (78) and started with unit record equipment (wiring the boards) and IBM14xx series (punch cards) and a Monorobot XI (punch cards and paper tape) and others of interest in the Smithsonian.  I use MABM and IObit Malware.  I’ve turned off Defender because I got tired of having programs removed during download and having to then white list and redownload.  I’m getting this happen on 100% reliable sites, most notably majorgeeks.com.  I am creating system restore points and am also running Shadow Defender, just in case.  It may be that I am more daring than others but I find the strictures of Defender to be excessive (and, as I said, often wrong).  I’ve never had a problem with software from a legitimate source and I enable Shadow Defender if I’m going to be doing something out of the ordinary.

victcg

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RockFox, Myst

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I just made the jump from Win7 SP1 fully updated on 10 year old H/W (2 computers) to new H/W and Win 10 ver 2004. Been using Win 10 1803 at work for some time, so was used to it. But anyway, I digress.

From the days of XP SP2 to the just-retired Win 7 installation, I ran AVG Free. However in the last few months it was becoming a nag and a “I wanna do it all for you” type of application, even on the free edition that is only supposed to be a basic A/V and Anti Crapware. Alongside it I’ve always run the free edition of Malwarebytes with no issues at all with either one.

When I got the new machines with a clean installation of Win 10 2004, AVG didn’t make the trip, and I’m glad. I took Woody’s advice and am now using Windows Defender tweaked to my own aggressive settings, alongside the free edition of Malwarebytes. Both run much faster than AVG and with no nags about upgrading or any gotchas about new components installed that I didn’t want in the first place.

All I ever wanted AVG to do was be what it used to be good at…anti-virus scanning and resident file protection from viruses, PERIOD. So when it sprouted a network scanner and overly aggressive ransomware scanner, neither of which could be uninstalled or fully turned off, I couldn’t WAIT for the day to pick up my new machines. The idea of a ransomware scanner is good, but I only wanted to use it on an on-demand basis, NOT have it as a “TSR” (what some programs used to be called back in the days of DOS). The ransomware scanner was prohibiting me from making legitimate changes to the directories it was assigned to protect, and I didn’t see a way within the settings to lighten its intrusiveness without doing so on an individual, every-time-I-make-a-change, basis. That got old VERY quickly, and I established new directories for the items within those directories to get away from it. It was safeguarding empty directories by the time I got my new computers. At least it didn’t stop Windows from making changes to the OS when the monthly updates rolled in!

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In the past I’ve used five or six other AV thingies, but every one of them clogged up whatever machine I was using at the time, and ended up nagging me with sales pitches and spam. I never had anything caught by these memory hogs, but did have perfectly clean and decent downloads flagged, aggravating me no end.

Defender seems to do whatever it does with little fuss or bother. Even the scanning isn’t bothersome– once in a while I get a popup saying there was a clean scan and that’s that.

I was using Malwarebytes for a while, and may again in the future, but rumor has it Defender now does what Malwarebytes was doing, so no need. So far.

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doriel

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Exactly! I second your experience. If you use free versions of AV, there are lot of popups that tries to force users into byuing that AV. Sadly, these AVs are slowing and bloating your computer and I say, they are more adware, than security software. Im done with these pseudo-free AVs and I thank MSFT for getting this issue finally right.

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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The best answer to your question is to look at independent tests and they show great improvement from past versions of Windows Defender, but it is a product still behind other paid or free AV software.

I can only talk from my experience and it should count as I have many computers and I spend 8 to 10 hours a day with one of them.  Since I installed Bitdefender AV Free many years ago, plus browser security extensions, virus has been something of the past.  Bitdefender is not intrusive nor delay the computer.  But anyone who has a conservative and very cautious use of the internet, surely can rely on Windows Defender, the computer will not be slowed down.

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WSJCitizen

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I completely support using Windows Defender over Kaspersky or Bitdefender.

In the past, I had a problem connecting to my Modem Admin page from one computer on my local network, but otherwise had full internet and router access. The problem was Kaspersky Internet Security. I uninstalled and re-installed and all was restored to full operation.

More recently, I had problem with network discovery on my local network after upgrading from Win 10 1803 to 1809. The problem was Bitdefender Internet Security. I uninstalled Bitdefender on all my computers, switching to Windows Defender. This fixed all the network discovery problems on my local network.

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Agreed, I’ve supported some small businesses with Windows 10, Bitdefender and Kaspersky both complicated the small networking setup and it’s reliability. After a few call backs they agreed to switch to Windows Defender with Malwarebytes, no more call backs.

A user can easily defeat any anti-virus software, so common sense is a valuable tool as well.

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bbearren wrote:

I used Microsoft Security Essentials together with Malwarebytes Premium lifetime license since Windows 7, and the only difference with Windows 8,8.1 and now 10 is the name change to Windows Defender.  I’ve never had any difficulty, never a virus, no malware, PUP’s or PUM’s. All the automatic scans run as well as some extras I have set up in Task Scheduler.

When Malwarebytes went to a yearly subscription, I stayed with the lifetime license and did not upgrade.  It is still being kept up to date, now on version 4.2.0.82, last signature update today at 1:38 PM.  Windows Defender and Malwarebytes Premium (lifetime license) work very well together.

 

I’ve probably posted similar before, but I also kept my MBAM lifetime license, and when it started behaving like a dedicated AV, I got rid of Avast ( which was going down hill anyway). Came to fine out, the war between Avast and MBAM was keeping Malware-bytes from operating properly, despite settings to alleviate that. So I’ve discovered MBAM is actually one of the best utilities out there; however I work for a lot of indigent users that can’t afford too much, and have started recommending the AV version of Windows Defender, and they have done very well.

Win10 is probably one of the more secure Windows OS to ever come out, so as long as it is kept updated and all apps updated, and the UEFI properly enabled, it literally looks like one could get away with murder out on the Wild West of the Web. However, every since Secunia PSI was taken off the free market, I’ve discovered Opatch to be a fairly economical way to keep all things patched without the horrendous boondoggles MS has done with v 2004, and previous disasters, and it monitors and patches over 600 apps as well as the OS! I haven’t noticed that it uses much RAM and it is definitely better than putting up with Windows Update, even though you could still upgrade when it is considered safe to do so.

So my main point is that as long as a user is logged in on a standard local account, and occasionally uses a good file cleaner to dump any offending browser files that might harbor attack packages, I’d almost admit one could do with out ANY anti-virus these days. As long as one has an image backup on media that can be scanned for hidden ransomware batch files, I’m beginning to think Windows Defender is the only thing needed, and may not even that particularly! Of course if you need to scan a drive, you will need an AV to do so; but there again, the rescue disk is the best way to do that – just point to the drive in the Linux boot environment provided by the rescue disc, and complete that mission. Doing so may even prevent the ransomware from migrating in the file structure to avoid detection and removal.

I only say this because I used to run a busy honey pot lab at my last contract and learned a lot about how today’s malware/virus behaves and what can be done to avoid catastrophe, in the most direct and economical way. If one does get compromised, I’ve found the latest copy of Kaspersky’s free Rescue Disc can go a long way in nuking any problems from outside normal boot mode, as long as it isn’t a zero day threat – but wait a few hours or a day, and it will zap those as well; so keeping an up to date copy of that in the disaster drawer is a good thing too. Just my opinion based on years of fighting malware every day.

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YOU and Defender should be fine. No need to pay anything; I’ve never paid for AV. For the past several years I’ve used the free Malwarebytes along with Microsoft Security Essentials then Defender, and for the past several years Malwarebytes hasn’t detected a thing.  It helps that I consider myself among the “world’s most suspicious persons”. The computer user is the first line of defense and the most important line of defense, and could very well be all you need. But Defender is free, so why not use it?

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rc primak, doriel

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I came across these bits of info while researching VPNs and antivirus software. Left me confused…again! Would any of you, more capable, try to clarify it for me, please?

“VPN Speeds Explained”
https://blog.windscribe.com/vpn-speeds-explained-7a7c7df8f3fa
3rd party anti-virus or firewall — AV software these days does a lot more than scan files on disk for viruses. It hooks into the OS on a very deep level and monitors all activity that’s happening on your computer. Sometimes this can go deep enough to include network interfaces as well. When AV software tries to inspect encrypted network traffic it can slow down the connection, or break the tunnel entirely. If you use this type of anti virus software, try disabling the “SSL Scanning” feature in the settings. Better yet, remove it entirely and practice common sense.

“It might be time to stop using antivirus”

(article related to last phrase “practice common sense”)
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/01/antivirus-is-bad/

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That’s a really specific issue and without details of what AV you use and if you use a VPN we can’t really comment.

cheers, Paul

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Regardless of the AV (in my case, Bitdefender and Surfshark vpn), I was confused with the “don´t use” advice and sticking to Windows Defender.

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I don’t remember seeing any reports here of AV slowing / breaking connections.
Is it something you experience on your system? If so, are you sure it’s not the VPN provider being slow?

cheers, Paul

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