# Decent free antivirus?



## hat (Feb 13, 2018)

THIS thread again... I used the search function, the most recent one was locked.

We tried AVG, but it came with all this other crap. "Speed up your PC" type stuff... I don't want that. I want an antivirus that does just that and nothing else. I did take something from the last thread though: BitDefender Free. Trying it out now, looks very basic and just protects the system. I just ran a scan though and it detected my miner as a threat, but it didn't do anything about it. It didn't delete it, put it in quarantine, or even asked me what I wanted to do. It just said there were unresolved threats, what and where they are, and under the status column or whatever it said "blocked"...


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## pigulici (Feb 13, 2018)

I use Avira free...


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## Readlight (Feb 13, 2018)

I Don't use any antivirus I don't need useless stuff running. I don't trust these American, Russian software. I remembered Kaspersky was the best.all of them are usable one month.
I just don't visit untrusty places on the internet anymore.


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## ExV6k (Feb 13, 2018)

https://www.kaspersky.com/free-antivirus

Fits your description perfectly.


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## CAPSLOCKSTUCK (Feb 13, 2018)

Windows Defender.


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## RejZoR (Feb 13, 2018)

Just because it has something in the menu it doesn't mean it actuall yhas that installed. avast! Free is modular and while it shows "upsell" features in the interface, they are literally just a button that leads to "Buy" page. You can also strip it of most modules you don't need, leaving just essential protective modules.


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## Space Lynx (Feb 13, 2018)

I have a lifetime license for Malwarebytes, I just use that and that only, I love it


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## Easo (Feb 13, 2018)

Windows Defender.


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## TheMailMan78 (Feb 13, 2018)

Windows Defender. If not Bitdefender Free.

Better than everything listed thus far in this thread according to third-party testers.

https://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/free.html


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## DRDNA (Feb 13, 2018)

Windows Defender with Malwarebytes Pro with  lifetime license.


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## peche (Feb 13, 2018)

hat said:


> We tried AVG, but it came with all this other crap. "Speed up your PC" type stuff... I don't want that


honestly, i still use AVG, decent protection for free, all you have to do is clock on "X" on most advises, i was in your situation some months ago, then learned how to ignore that advise.

Regards,


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## dorsetknob (Feb 13, 2018)

CAPSLOCKSTUCK said:


> Windows Defender.





Easo said:


> Windows Defender.





TheMailMan78 said:


> Windows Defender. If not Bitdefender Free.
> 
> Better than everything listed thus far in this thread according to third-party testers.
> 
> https://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/free.html





DRDNA said:


> Windows Defender with Malwarebytes Pro with  lifetime license.


Oh and just in case its for an older O/S

this little nugget of goodness 
Still not on Windows 10? Fine, sighs Microsoft, here are its antivirus tools for Windows 7, 8.1
Redmond extends ATP to older builds, adds third-party links


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## The_DriverX (Feb 13, 2018)

You might be interested in this: https://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/eek/   It is completely free (for non-commerical use). It's even portable (like store it on a USB thumb drive)!


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## Bill_Bright (Feb 13, 2018)

I agree with using Windows Defender. I use it on all my systems and have had no problems going all the way back to MSE (the predecessor to WD) on W7.

BTW, before anyone considers Kaspersky, while it is a good anti-malware solution, it will not come anywhere near any system I am responsible for.

Kaspersky Lab antivirus firm used by hundreds of thousands of Britons 'is controlled by Russian secret service'
US bans Kaspersky software from government agencies

While the "KGB trained"  CEO's claims he knew nothing about it (plausible deniability?) may be true, there is just too much evidence showing something is going on. Since the firm is located in Moscow, it would be easy for Putin to "plant" Russian operatives in the company. So good program or not, they cannot be trusted.


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## TheMailMan78 (Feb 13, 2018)

Bill_Bright said:


> I agree with using Windows Defender. I use it on all my systems and have had no problems going all the way back to MSE (the predecessor to WD) on W7.
> 
> BTW, before anyone considers Kaspersky, while it is a good anti-malware solution, it will not come anywhere near any system I am responsible for.
> 
> ...


Its why I run Bitdefender. Just as good as Kapersky but, Romanian instead of Russian.


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## Gasaraki (Feb 13, 2018)

I have personally used Avast for like 10 years and I swear by it. Yes they have some nag menus now that pop up sometimes but you can customize what blades you want to install so you can just install the basic blade that does virus scanning if you want. However their web protection blade is VERY good. If the website is infected somehow, it will stop the connection to it at that point. It has saved me a few times.


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## jboydgolfer (Feb 13, 2018)

https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download/thankyou/


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## windwhirl (Feb 13, 2018)

For free? Windows Defender does its work quite fine. Maybe add Malwarebytes for on-demand scanning.

On that note, though, how times change. A couple years ago you'd have to be insane to use only WD, now it's actually not a bad idea...


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## jsalpha2 (Feb 13, 2018)

No love for Panda?


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## Bill_Bright (Feb 13, 2018)

windwhirl said:


> On that note, though, how times change. A couple years ago you'd have to be insane to use only WD, now it's actually not a bad idea...


Then I was insane. As noted above, I used WD since before it was WD - as MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials) with W7. I stuck with WD in W8, and stayed with it in W10. And with no regrets, or infections. 

WD got a bad rap for two reasons. (1) It didn't score as well as other programs in artificial lab testing. And (2) from bad publicity from MS bashers in the IT press and blogospere, and from the marketing departments of the competing products. 

But because Microsoft does not make any money from WD, they don't need high simulated "real world" lab scores for advertising, publicity and marketing  purposes. So Microsoft does not code WD to score well in those simulated tests. They just code it to protect users in the real real world. And surprise surprise, it does that well. Windows Defender users are NOT getting infected as the MS bashers and competing products would like us to believe. 

Of course, regardless your primary scanner of choice, everyone should have a secondary scanner on hand, just to make sure the primary scanner, or the user did not let something slip by. And I agree adding Malwarebytes for on-demand scanning is great for that. 

That said, even the best security defenses in the world are easily defeated if the user opens the door and lets the bad guy in. So it is incumbent on the user (always the weakest link in security) to keep their OS and security current, and to not be "click-happy" on unsolicited links, popups, attachments and downloads.


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## Space Lynx (Feb 13, 2018)

DRDNA said:


> Windows Defender with Malwarebytes Pro with  lifetime license.




That's what I use too!!!  Hey we should be buds!


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## illli (Feb 13, 2018)

Surprised by all the windows defender recommendations. Wasn't it pretty terrible and ranked low in the av comparative tests?  Has something changed in the past couple of years?


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## Bill_Bright (Feb 13, 2018)

illli said:


> Wasn't it pretty terrible and ranked low in the av comparative tests?


Please read my last post. It explains it.


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## windwhirl (Feb 13, 2018)

illli said:


> Surprised by all the windows defender recommendations. Wasn't it pretty terrible and ranked low in the av comparative tests?  Has something changed in the past couple of years?



Well, these days WD doesn't score badly on AV tests. It's not reaching yet 100% all the time, but it's free, it's available on any computer with at least Windows 7 and some people can't be bothered to install antivirus software, so Microsoft probably has around 10 or 15% of the Windows market using Defender (I don't think anyone has data on that, except Microsoft, so it's just a guess). That gives them a lot of systems that send them feedback and suspicious files.


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## RealNeil (Feb 13, 2018)

Malwarebytes and Webroot SecureAnywhere.

Secure Anywhere isn't free, but I can usually get three one-year licences for $9.95 each, from sales at Newegg.
I buy three of them every year and that gives me good protection for up to nine PCs. (I usually have 6 or 7 running)


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## GoldenX (Feb 14, 2018)

Windows Defender, or just Linux, you know, an OS that doesn't need 3rd party software to defend itself.


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## Jetster (Feb 14, 2018)

Only use Malwarebytes


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## Athlonite (Feb 14, 2018)

GoldenX said:


> Windows Defender, or just Linux, you know, an OS that doesn't need 3rd party software to defend itself.



Linux you say isn't affected by malware or Viri you sound like an Apple sales person 

@OP if you don't wish to pay or put up with all the other crap that comes with "Free" Antivirus programs then just stick to Windows Defender


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## newtekie1 (Feb 14, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> Just because it has something in the menu it doesn't mean it actuall yhas that installed. avast! Free is modular and while it shows "upsell" features in the interface, they are literally just a button that leads to "Buy" page. You can also strip it of most modules you don't need, leaving just essential protective modules.



I was just going to suggest exactly this. Just do a custom install and select minimal installation(though I add behavior scan and email scan back manually). 

Also, you can get rid of most of the ad pop-ups by putting Avast in Silent Mode under settings.


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## Hood (Feb 14, 2018)

Windows Defender hasn't let me down for years.


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## jboydgolfer (Feb 14, 2018)

DRDNA said:


> Malwarebytes Pro with lifetime license.



Can you link me the product page where you bought a lifetime Malwarebytes pro key please ? Im curious what that costs and when they began offering them. It sound more like a crack type activation when "lifetime" is used

nevermind , they dont sell 'em anymore.


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## The_DriverX (Feb 14, 2018)

All of these AV software have good and bad points. Overall, no matter what AV or operating system you have, practice being careful while online... No software/hardware can protect you if you are reckless... As a meme online I will quote: "This machine does not have a brain... Provide your own!"


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## John Naylor (Feb 14, 2018)

It's not the the free stuff isn't good....  In the November test, Avast Free caught 99.9% of the "*widespread and prevalent malware discovered in the last 4 weeks (the AV-TEST reference set)".  *That means that 11 viruses got thru.   Once cleaned over 1200 infections out of a Defender / Essentials  protected machine back in 2016  and it was back 3 months later with 670 more.  Have had machines come in with all sorts of free and paid for stuff but they wouldn't be here, if they weren't infected.   Ya can't fix stoopid and even the best get surprised on ocassion.

The free trials of Kaspersky or BD get most of them but once infected usually have to remove a few manually.  But even in most recent test, Defender caught only 98.9% of *0-day malware attacks, inclusive of web and e-mail threats (**Real-World Testing**)", * But like a medicine that helps 99 people and kills just one ... that's a pretty good performance record... unless you happen to be that one.

I usually clean them with a 30 day free trial of Kaspersky or BitDefender Suites and leave it up to the user to pay for the subscription ... usually about $5 - $7 a seat.  Personally, I have too many seats to have to bother with manual upgrades and manual scan runs common with many freebies.  We even gave up on BitDefender whan they switched to a model where eachs eat had to be downlaoded and managed from each box.   If it comes back, dealt with that once, if you get infected again you are on your own.  Have never had a box infected that I was responsible for administering in 26 years.

As for the testing, any test site that doesn't use **real world** testing isn't worth looking at  They have a collection of visual in the wild, they install an OS, thy install the AV, they expose it to viruses.  Just as important is false positives:

Windows Defender "*False detections of legitimate software as malware during a system scan - November = 11 / December = 16)
"False blockages of certain actions carried out whilst installing and using legitimate software = 1 *

Industry average is 0 on both counts.

*And performance impacts:*

*"Slower installation of frequently-used applications" Novembe*r *= 42% (26%) December = 54% (35%)" * Industry averages in (  )

That being said, what you use should depend on the value of what's being protected.  If it's a gaming box, not really anything there that can't be replaced and Defender is more than enough.   If that's the only copy of 1,000s of family photos or 26 years of business records, might want to give up $7 a year.  If using Defender, then if something gets by, ya can always download one of the free trials and hopefully get rid of it.   Get hit again, well try the other one this time. 

But for my money, If it saves me 3 minutes a year, it's cheaper to pay the site license.


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## PHaS3 (Feb 14, 2018)

Window Defender or Sophos Home (Free)


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## OneMoar (Feb 14, 2018)

windows defender is more than adequate unless you go looking for trouble
3d party av for the typical user case is dead died with windows xp, registry cleaners and other fudware non-sense


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## GoldenX (Feb 14, 2018)

Athlonite said:


> Linux you say isn't affected by malware or Viri you sound like an Apple sales person...



Stay in an updated kernel and that's it, don't stay on an old distro.


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## RejZoR (Feb 14, 2018)

newtekie1 said:


> I was just going to suggest exactly this. Just do a custom install and select minimal installation(though I add behavior scan and email scan back manually).
> 
> Also, you can get rid of most of the ad pop-ups by putting Avast in Silent Mode under settings.



Per our request, they've included Behavior Shield intot he Minimal Installation. For some reason e-mail is not included, but I'd also recommend it even if you only use web based e-mail. If AV has Mail Shield module, it'll also be able to intercept spam bots easier. Everything else beyond these basic 4 shields is entirely optional, yes.


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## kn00tcn (Feb 14, 2018)

GoldenX said:


> Stay in an updated kernel and that's it, don't stay on an old distro.


that's completely wrong & dangerous to tell others this false sense

heartbleed was the openssl package, stagefright was android's multimedia framework, every CVE in chromium is specifically the browser, the list goes on & on...

windows & osx have the exact same situation of apps/libraries having holes in them, windows simply has additional holes caused by users running as admin, apps having extra permissions (all or nothing), etc


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## Liviu Cojocaru (Feb 14, 2018)

+1 for Windows Defender in conjunction with Malwarebytes free


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## ShurikN (Feb 14, 2018)

Windows Defender is ok if you are perfectly careful, know what you are doing 100% of the time, never missclick anything, pay enormous attention to what you open etc. Therefore might as well not use anything at all.
My dad had it, and incredibly high number of crap gets through. I've put Avira on his PC, and so far no issues.
So if you want an idiot-proof AV, do not use Windows Defender.


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## jboydgolfer (Feb 14, 2018)

Yes ,if you find yourself wading through videos of dwarf horse porno, you may accidentally click a "bad link".  but unless you do stuff like that online ,you're fine with just the basic stuff ,& common sense. Visiting sites with situations where you might accidentally click a bad link IS poor judgement, or lack of proper browsing habits, & also gross.


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## newtekie1 (Feb 14, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> Per our request, they've included Behavior Shield intot he Minimal Installation. For some reason e-mail is not included, but I'd also recommend it even if you only use web based e-mail. If AV has Mail Shield module, it'll also be able to intercept spam bots easier. Everything else beyond these basic 4 shields is entirely optional, yes.



The free email shield is the reason I use Avast. It has intercepted Ransomware spam that Windows Defender let right though(and didn't even stop once it was run).  I'm glad they made the behavior shield part of the minimal install now, so I only have to add one thing manually.



jboydgolfer said:


> Yes ,if you find yourself wading through videos of dwarf horse porno, you may accidentally click a "bad link".  but unless you do stuff like that online ,you're fine with just the basic stuff ,& common sense. Visiting sites with situations where you might accidentally click a bad link IS poor judgement, or lack of proper browsing habits, & also gross.



That isn't he major source of issues these days.  Yes, for us enthusiasts that are a little smarter, we can usually weed out a BS email.  But a lot of people are fooled by them.



ShurikN said:


> So if you want an idiot-proof AV, do not use Windows Defender.



Yep, basically this.  Windows Defender is the bare minimum of protection.  It is like pulling out as birth control.


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## RejZoR (Feb 14, 2018)

I'll try to talk to avast! guys why Mail Shield is not included in the minimal install. Would make more sense to have it as well, you'd just slam Minimal install and be done with it. Adding 1 extra tick is still annoying...

Btw, Windows Defender is a bit better than "pulling out". Imagine it as the cheapest condom you can buy which is still certified to do its job...


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## Vayra86 (Feb 14, 2018)

jsalpha2 said:


> No love for Panda?



Love's gone here for Panda, when Windows Defender started covering all bases. But yes, did use the free cloud version, it was pretty solid, but also wasn't free of issues and you get a UI with clutter.

The best thing of it all is that WD even does better when it comes to false positives.


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## newtekie1 (Feb 14, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> I'll try to talk to avast! guys why Mail Shield is not included in the minimal install. Would make more sense to have it as well, you'd just slam Minimal install and be done with it. Adding 1 extra tick is still annoying...
> 
> Btw, Windows Defender is a bit better than "pulling out". Imagine it as the cheapest condom you can buy which is still certified to do its job...



Nah, I'd say it is just a bit better than not and just praying.


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## Space Lynx (Feb 14, 2018)

jboydgolfer said:


> Can you link me the product page where you bought a lifetime Malwarebytes pro key please ? Im curious what that costs and when they began offering them. It sound more like a crack type activation when "lifetime" is used
> 
> nevermind , they dont sell 'em anymore.



I bought mine many many years ago, I don't think they sell them anymore, it was only $15 at the time on Ebay. Got super lucky, haha  This was before they had thought of the yearly pay scheme, haha


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## EsaT (Feb 14, 2018)

The_DriverX said:


> All of these AV software have good and bad points. Overall, no matter what AV or operating system you have, practice being careful while online... No software/hardware can protect you if you are reckless... As a meme online I will quote: "This machine does not have a brain... Provide your own!"


And there's no guarantee that in longer term maker of software doesn't do something stupid or highly annoying to user.
Like Avira once starting to nag about upgrading to commercial version every few hours.
Must have resulted in good number of uninstalls...


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## jboydgolfer (Feb 14, 2018)

lynx29 said:


> I bought mine many many years ago, I don't think they sell them anymore, it was only $15 at the time on Ebay. Got super lucky, haha  This was before they had thought of the yearly pay scheme, haha



Yeah I had one too, but I made the mistake of not deactivating that key, before retiring the pc it was tied to,  so it "went down with the ship" so to speak.

They used to sell lifetime keys during their early years to drum up attention in the computer security community for their product ,but in 2014 they stopped the lifetime key ,because they felt they had enough noteriety in the security community.   Sometimes you can come across one now and again but more often than not there illegitimate

 When they first got started, you could actually just search for a key on YouTube/google,and keep trying over and over again ,and out of 10 tries ,you'd get three keys that actually worked


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## dirtyferret (Feb 14, 2018)

Windows defender or bit defender.  Both are not intrusive and you see no upgrade adds.


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## ShurikN (Feb 14, 2018)

jboydgolfer said:


> Yes ,if you find yourself wading through videos of dwarf horse porno, you may accidentally click a "bad link".  but unless you do stuff like that online ,you're fine with just the basic stuff ,& common sense. Visiting sites with situations where you might accidentally click a bad link IS poor judgement, or lack of proper browsing habits, & also gross.


If you only visit stuff you've visited hundreds of times, and popular sites like YT, FB, News sites etc. then you don't need an AV at all.


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## dorsetknob (Feb 14, 2018)

ShurikN said:


> If you only visit stuff you've visited hundreds of times, and popular sites like YT, FB, News sites etc. then you don't need an AV at all.


Thank you for the larf,,,,,,
You never heard of drive thru virus and malware infection or Browser Cryptominers   all have been found on regular well visted Sites such as youtube MSN many News Sites ever your Goverment Sites
those nastys usualy get there by bad adverts 
we even had threads and posts here on TPU mentioning this  ( and Some have Claimed TPU has even served such Tainted Ads in the past   OH THE SACRILEGE OF SUCH PEOPLE >>>)


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## exodusprime1337 (Feb 14, 2018)

I know you're looking for free, and in that regards Windows Defender will meet the bare minimums for sure. It's detection rate isn't as high as other AV's out there but it's good enough to get by. The caveat with defender is that when using it you have to also take into account other windows settings that make it more feature rich. If  you turn of safe search or use a third party browser it suffers, if you disable uac it suffers. Defender with good internet habits will get you by just fine. 

When it comes to a good personal AV i personally prefer anything from Bitdefender or Trend Micro.  Today's threats have moved beyond definition based malware and have moved largely into file less malware, living off the land, exploitation(autosploit), and botnet traffic. A standard definition only based AV like windows defender doesn't have what it takes to protect users as readily as a good pay for solution. Bitdefender and Trend both offer not only exploit, and definition based protections but also provide behavior based monitoring and utilize a neural network of shared data from all their agents to better detect today's and tomorrows threats. Both of these receive fantastic detection and lab scores as well as Gartner ratings for both visionaries and leaders in the magic quadrant for their industries. 

Another reason to consider a good pay for option is system performance. Both the above mentioned pay for options allow for easy addition of exclusions; and come with most of the necessary exclusions built in. For this reason alone i always consider these first as i take very care that the apps running on my machines don't hinder the overall performance. Solutions from Kaspersky, avira, and others do have fantastic detection rates, but scan operations are usually system intensive and show a noticeable hit to performance. I would consider skipping Kaspersky for russia ties though. It's pretty well documented there was a backdoor built into the software which basically means it in itself is just malware nowadays. 

I've worked as a cyber security engineer for quite a while and before that a senior analyst and threat hunter. Based on years of watching malware assault all various forms of OS's from mobile devices to linux to mac and windows i just wanted to provide a bit of insight about the two AV's i most prefer. You may find your money well spent opting for Bitdefender or Trend.


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## Space Lynx (Feb 14, 2018)

jboydgolfer said:


> Yeah I had one too, but I made the mistake of not deactivating that key, before retiring the pc it was tied to,  so it "went down with the ship" so to speak.
> 
> They used to sell lifetime keys during their early years to drum up attention in the computer security community for their product ,but in 2014 they stopped the lifetime key ,because they felt they had enough noteriety in the security community.   Sometimes you can come across one now and again but more often than not there illegitimate
> 
> When they first got started, you could actually just search for a key on YouTube/google,and keep trying over and over again ,and out of 10 tries ,you'd get three keys that actually worked




That happened to me as well, so I contacted Malwarebytes Support team, showed them my Lifetime key I had saved, told them I forgot to deactivate before a clean install, and they reset it for me.

If you still have your original key, they will reset it for you.


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## ShurikN (Feb 14, 2018)

dorsetknob said:


> Thank you for the larf,,,,,,
> You never heard of drive thru virus and malware infection or Browser Cryptominers   all have been found on regular well visted Sites such as youtube MSN many News Sites ever your Goverment Sites
> those nastys usualy get there by bad adverts
> we even had threads and posts here on TPU mentioning this  ( and Some have Claimed TPU has even served such Tainted Ads in the past   OH THE SACRILEGE OF SUCH PEOPLE>>>)


I know very well about Youtube cripto ad injection, the rest I do not visit. When large sites like that get cripto infected, the word gets out, and everything gets resolved. Or if it happened by their choice, I simply don't visit them anymore.
Second. I have never in my life, NEVER got a virus visiting sites i regularly visit, and know are safe. As a matter of fact I don't think I have ever gotten my PC infected by myself. It did happen a couple of times with friends USB flash drives, but I needed the files on those drives, and removing the infection afterwards was never an issue. And it all happened during WinXP era, without any AV solutions.


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## Space Lynx (Feb 14, 2018)

ShurikN said:


> I know very well about Youtube cripto ad injection, the rest I do not visit. When large sites like that get cripto infected, the word gets out, and everything gets resolved. Or if it happened by their choice, I simply don't visit them anymore.
> Second. I have never in my life, NEVER got a virus visiting sites i regularly visit, and know are safe. As a matter of fact I don't think I have ever gotten my PC infected by myself. It did happen a couple of times with friends USB flash drives, but I needed the files on those drives, and removing the infection afterwards was never an issue. And it all happened during WinXP era, without any AV solutions.



It's not just about virus's, viruses are a thing of the past imo. Malware is dominant now, and it doesn't usually slow your PC down, its just there for nasty purposes. Malwarebytes informs it has blocked a outgoing IP or incoming IP often... and PC is just sitting idle, so I have no idea, lol  My PC works great though so meh


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## GoldenX (Feb 14, 2018)

kn00tcn said:


> that's completely wrong & dangerous to tell others this false sense
> 
> heartbleed was the openssl package, stagefright was android's multimedia framework, every CVE in chromium is specifically the browser, the list goes on & on...
> 
> windows & osx have the exact same situation of apps/libraries having holes in them, windows simply has additional holes caused by users running as admin, apps having extra permissions (all or nothing), etc



Heartbleed affects all platforms and sofware using OpenSSL, Stagefright is an Android only problem, and Chromium is Google's fault, none of those are GNU/Linux's problems.
Something as simple as asking for the administrator's password by default saves a lot of installations, that's Windows fault.


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## Bill_Bright (Feb 14, 2018)

windwhirl said:


> it's available on any computer with at least Windows 7


Ummm, no. Windows Defender is only available on and included with W8 and W10.

For W7, you have to manually download and install Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE). MSE is similar to, but not the same as WD anymore, nor is it as secure. But it is still a capable solution.

And for those who claim WD is not adequate or is only good for those who know what they are doing 100% of the time, or must pay enormous attention to use it, well, they clearly don't know the product, and have not used the product recently. The fact is, WD is the easiest anti-malware solution out there! It's already installed, it updates itself, and it requires no user intervention unless it finds something. And then the prompts are easy to follow. You don't have to learn another UI, run any separate update programs, or know what you are doing to use it. 

And most importantly, it works.


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## Athlonite (Feb 14, 2018)

John Naylor said:


> It's not the the free stuff isn't good....  In the November test, Avast Free caught 99.9% of the "*widespread and prevalent malware discovered in the last 4 weeks (the AV-TEST reference set)".  *That means that 11 viruses got thru.   Once cleaned over 1200 infections out of a Defender / Essentials  protected machine back in 2016  and it was back 3 months later with 670 more.  Have had machines come in with all sorts of free and paid for stuff but they wouldn't be here, if they weren't infected.   Ya can't fix stoopid and even the best get surprised on ocassion.
> 
> The free trials of Kaspersky or BD get most of them but once infected usually have to remove a few manually.  But even in most recent test, Defender caught only 98.9% of *0-day malware attacks, inclusive of web and e-mail threats (**Real-World Testing**)", And for December it gained a 100% score * But like a medicine that helps 99 people and kills just one ... that's a pretty good performance record... unless you happen to be that one.
> 
> ...



Fixed it for you


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## theFOoL (Feb 15, 2018)

For years I used AVAST! but went along using WD after playing/Using W10Pro 

Saw a video of a guy testing and dropping viruses on it and it block's each he throws at it


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## eidairaman1 (Feb 15, 2018)

Avast- i turn off certain modules in it. Then MBAM, SWB, SAS, might give sbsd a shot again...


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## kn00tcn (Feb 16, 2018)

GoldenX said:


> Heartbleed affects all platforms and sofware using OpenSSL, Stagefright is an Android only problem, and Chromium is Google's fault, none of those are GNU/Linux's problems.
> Something as simple as asking for the administrator's password by default saves a lot of installations, that's Windows fault.


you just said update kernel ONLY & all is ok! must be some magical kernel that blocks all escalations & malware

nowhere did you say you/distro need to update the other software full of holes, ALL SOFTWARE YOU RUN CAN OR WILL BE THE PROBLEM, you dont only run a kernel

UAC's prompt is literally identical to the root prompt, both are a yes/no with no granular permissions, you allow the software to do whatever it wants on either OS

android uses the linux kernel, certain roms get kernel updates, a super secure updated kernel still needs every other lib & app updated, like every other OS... "doesnt affect GNU/Linux" utter BS, chromium is a multiplatform browser, android uses some of the exact same libs that desktop linux distros use, stagefright was an example but if you cant actually critically think to apply examples, how about gstreamer or ffmpeg


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## Melvis (Feb 16, 2018)

Decent free antivirus Programs I would go with the following:

Avast Free (What I have used personally for many yrs now)
Bitdefender Free
Kaspersky Free (Can be a pain with Chrome though)
Avira Free
Comodo
Panda (its ok but has alot of false positives)
360 (Also has alot of false positives)

On demand scanners:

Malwarebytes
Dr Web Cureit
JRT
Emsisoft EmergencyKit
Hitman Pro
Mbar

Paid Antivirus programs I recommend:

F secure
Nod32
Bitdefender
Kaspersky
Webroot
Emsisoft

Ones that I stay away from:

Norton
Trend Micro
McAfee
MSE/Windows Defender (I spent a good part of 2yrs cleaning Computers with this Useless AV, replaced with Avast Free, my Virus cleaning went down 90% ever since)
Telstra AV
AVG (its OK but I find it to slow a PC down way to much)

There is probably I few I have missed but thats what I can remember off the top of my head.


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## RejZoR (Feb 16, 2018)

AVG is actually identical to avast! underneath since Spring 2017 (when both were merged into one avast! core). Shouldn't behave any different performance wise.


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## Melvis (Feb 17, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> AVG is actually identical to avast! underneath since Spring 2017 (when both were merged into one avast! core). Shouldn't behave any different performance wise.



Hmm I will have to look into that one and see if it has indeed been improved to the performance of Avast. PC Speed up tool is shit though


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## Bill_Bright (Feb 17, 2018)

They are identical, but different. AVG now runs the Avast engine but has maintained a few features unique to AVG. Supposedly, that Avast engine has been enhanced with AVG capabilities. Regardless, the result is the same performance and protection results.

They were supposed to release a new, single, combined anti-malware solution by the 4th quarter of last year but that has not really happened. I suspect it has something to do with brand loyalty. Staunch AVG users don't want to see their product go away, and staunch Avast users don't want their product to morph into something else (although in effect, it has).


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## illli (Feb 19, 2018)

exodusprime1337 said:


> Another reason to consider a good pay for option is system performance. Both the above mentioned pay for options allow for easy addition of exclusions; and come with most of the necessary exclusions built in. For this reason alone i always consider these first as i take very care that the apps running on my machines don't hinder the overall performance. Solutions from Kaspersky, avira, and others do have fantastic detection rates, but scan operations are usually system intensive and show a noticeable hit to performance. I would consider skipping Kaspersky for russia ties though. It's pretty well documented there was a backdoor built into the software which basically means it in itself is just malware nowadays.



I wonder why the could av stuff never caught on as much.  I know panda had something, but it didn't seem that great for whatever reason.  but i thought the whole selling point of a cloud av was to offload the performance hit computers suffer when scanning etc


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## lexluthermiester (Feb 19, 2018)

CAPSLOCKSTUCK said:


> Windows Defender.


This assumes the user is willing to trust Microsoft. Not everyone does.

I prefer open source. ClamWin works well and doesn't run until you tell it and closes when you're done.


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## exodusprime1337 (Feb 19, 2018)

illli said:


> I wonder why the could av stuff never caught on as much.  I know panda had something, but it didn't seem that great for whatever reason.  but i thought the whole selling point of a cloud av was to offload the performance hit computers suffer when scanning etc



No the major selling point of being connected to someone like Trend or Bitdefender is they capture and analyze all the data points from their customers. Trend calls theirs a smart protect network. They take the data, analyze it and use it to create new definitions, heuristic analysis points, or behavior monitoring elements. If you have trend you even get predictive machine learning. The point where performance comes into play is whether you use real-time scan or conventional. Real-time is far less resource intensive and typically revolves around just scanning files that are created, modified, or retrieved. Where as conventional scans your whole system whether or not the files are touched. In some regards they keep a "database" of files previously scanned and then try to omit those but due to the way home computers are treated, so much changes with auto patching, people downloading crap and the like so it's kinda a wash and just takes a while.  I use OfficeScan for Enterprise at home. Real-time scan always and a full scan once a week.


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## RejZoR (Feb 20, 2018)

lexluthermiester said:


> This assumes the user is willing to trust Microsoft. Not everyone does.
> 
> I prefer open source. ClamWin works well and doesn't run until you tell it and closes when you're done.



ClamWin is a thing of the past. It doesn't have heuristics, advanced emulator, behavior blocker, cloud, nothing. It's literally 1990's technology. Would you really trust it to protect you? I don't know... :/


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## GoldenX (Feb 20, 2018)

lexluthermiester said:


> This assumes the user is willing to trust Microsoft. Not everyone does.
> 
> I prefer open source. ClamWin works well and doesn't run until you tell it and closes when you're done.



You are already using something from Microsoft, so it's a moot point.
I've used ClamWin for some Server 2003 installs, it has the potential to be good, but now it's too simple.


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## lexluthermiester (Feb 20, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> It doesn't have heuristics, advanced emulator, behavior blocker, cloud, nothing.


You just touched on it's selling points. What it does well is scan system memory and files for virii/malware. It's detection rate is very good, but at the cost of false positives. You get that with everything so it's no big deal.
EDIT; Forgot to mention that there is a realtime scanner that uses the Clam repositories as a base. It's called Clam Sentinel. It's a bit dated but still works well.


RejZoR said:


> Would you really trust it to protect you? I don't know... :/


I trust it to do what it's designed to do, scan for and find virii/malware when I ask it to. I also trust my computing methodology and ethic. I utilize hardware and software firewalls, don't go anywhere that falls under the catagory of " i shouldnt be here . com " and I don't download crap willy nilly.


GoldenX said:


> You are already using something from Microsoft, so it's a moot point.


If you're referring to Defender you would be incorrect. Windows Defender is not present on any of the systems in my home, including the one that runs Windows 10. It is forcibly and physically erased on the systems where standard install media are used, and is removed from custom install media.


GoldenX said:


> it's too simple.


Again, another selling point.

ClamWin;
http://www.clamwin.com/
Clam Sentinel;
http://clamsentinel.sourceforge.net/


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## GoldenX (Feb 21, 2018)

I mean you are using their OS, it's a moot point to fight over a "botnet" antivirus under Windows.
You have a point with ClamWin.


----------



## RejZoR (Feb 21, 2018)

@lexluthermiester 
Oh dear god you're so wrong about ClamWin  don't know even where to start. Wow it scans memory and everything! It's a dumb pattern match antivirus, about as sophisticated as antiviruses back in 1998.
Just shows how much you understand things so urge everyone reading this NOT to listen to you about this stuff. Because in this case, it's better to just be using Windows Defender. It may be primitive, but it's still light years better than ClamWin.


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## lexluthermiester (Feb 21, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> Oh dear god you're so wrong about ClamWin don't know even where to start.


How about starting with accepting that not everyone does things the same way and what works for some might not work for all.


RejZoR said:


> Wow it scans memory and everything! It's a dumb pattern match antivirus, about as sophisticated as antiviruses back in 1998.


How else is an antivirus going to find things? Magic? I've been virus/malware free since 2007 when I switched over to ClamWin. It works, very well. If *you* don't like it or think it doesn't work well, use something that you like. No one is twisting your arm or holding a gun to your head.


RejZoR said:


> Just shows how much you understand things so urge everyone reading this NOT to listen to you about this stuff.


And that would be *you* behaving poorly and vendictively. This is an option that has worked effectively for many and for over a decade. Don't care whether you like it, agree with it or think it's wackado.


RejZoR said:


> Because in this case, it's better to just be using Windows Defender.


An opinion not shared by everyone. It also assumes you trust Microsoft. Some people don't and won't until they prove themselves trustworthy. No one should be expected to hold their breath waiting on that one.


RejZoR said:


> It may be primitive, but it's still light years better than ClamWin.


Also an opinion not shared by everyone.

The OP asked for options and opinions. Offered my perspectives. 

You don't see me blasting you for some of your notions, do you? Let it go.


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## RejZoR (Feb 21, 2018)

Opinion has NOTHING to do with facts. And the facts is, ClamWin is a VERY primitive piece of software stuck in the past, more accurately, 2 decades in the past. If you think scanning memory just magically detects shit you couldn't possibly be more wrong. Ever heard of memory obfuscation/encryption? App running in memory looks like bunch of drivel to ClamWin. Unless you capture the code at correct points, toss it in emulator, run it there for it to reveal its actual code and then pattern match it. Or let it do whatever it wants to do and monitor its behavior with behavior blocker. If you honestly believe that ClamWin has any such capability, then good luck with it. Or what antiviruses mostly rely these days is machine learning and data transmission via cloud where processing is done on antivirus company servers with "big data" principles that don't look at individual binaries but classify them on many more factors beyond just the file structure (like point of origin, means of distribution, metadata attached to it, the icon used etc), users only receive snippets of data whether checked file is clean or not. Increases response times and makes a lot less burden on user system.

Antiviruses evolve because malware also evolves. ClamWin has been pretty much identical for the entire time I know about it. Which is about 2 decades. Behaving "poorly and vindictively". Yeah, because you're parroting nonsense to clueless people who will then take your idiocy as a holy grail and get their personal data and files compromised.

Also this line *"How else is an antivirus going to find things? Magic?"* of yours pretty much explains your ignorance to facts. No, it's not magic, it's called technology. Which ClamWin doesn't posses. At all.

If you don't want to accept facts, whatever, but don't preach that nonsense to people and put them at risk. Calling me names and my behavior "poor", whatever. It really tosses my lid off when people start out arguments with "hurt feelings" excuses. I'm stating hard facts. If they offend you, that's your problem.


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## sepheronx (Feb 21, 2018)

I use Kaspersky free.  Works fine for me and I rarely notice it.


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## hat (Feb 21, 2018)

Well so far I haven't heard any complaints about bitdefender. I might run that and mbam in the future or get a mbam license and do that, eventually.


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## lexluthermiester (Feb 22, 2018)

sepheronx said:


> I use Kaspersky free.  Works fine for me and I rarely notice it.


I've got a few clients that like Kaspersky. Some people are freaked out by the drama of last year. For those that are not fans of ClamWin and want realtime protection, I've been recommending Comodo. They have a consistently good track-record and their firewall is very good.


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## RejZoR (Feb 24, 2018)

Comodo is meh. If you use their Auto Sandbox (Containment) it's pretty good, but just AV alone is pretty basic. Still far far better than ClamWin though.

Kaspersky Free is also a very good option. Lacks System Watcher (behavior blocker), but still. The drama about Russians spying is such manufactured nonsense it's unbelievable. NSA's contractor was caught with hack tools by Kaspersky and people somehow blame Russians. That's like catching a shoplifter and then blaming the shop owner for it. That's the situation here. So, forget about that and just use Kaspersky if you like it. Detection wise it has always been among the best.


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## lexluthermiester (Feb 24, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> it's unbelievable.


I don't believe it either, but it freaked people out.

The advantage Comodo has is their very good firewall(which fully replaces the builtin Windows firewall). If malware and virii can't get in, infections possible are minimized. Then the AV takes over and uses their heuristics engine, which is excellent, to find anything really squirrely. Kaspersky doesn't have that.


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## RejZoR (Feb 24, 2018)

Kaspersky does have that. Their file heuristics are pretty advanced, especially if you set them to High for each protective module. They are very accurate and rarely do false positives. Comodo heuristics are quite trigger happy. I guess it's why they disabled them out of the box now.


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## lexluthermiester (Feb 24, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> Kaspersky does have that.


Sorry, was referring to the firewall.


RejZoR said:


> Comodo heuristics are quite trigger happy.


False positive rates are less than .2%. Not what I would call trigger happy..


RejZoR said:


> I guess it's why they disabled them out of the box now.


Where did you read that? Installed it yesterday on a client PC and the heuristics are not disabled.


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## RejZoR (Feb 24, 2018)

I don't know where you got that number... What I do know is that using High heuristics with Comodo is almost impossible to use as it'll flag almost any tool or tweak app. They had heuristics set to Low in older versions which was very bearable with rare FP's and in recent version 10, heuristics are entirely disabled. Sensitivity setting is still there, but disabled by default. How do I know that, I'm following Comodo development since early versions of 1.0...


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## lexluthermiester (Feb 25, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> I don't know where you got that number...


It was a review site that did an AV comparison. Can't remember and can't find it or I'd link it here.


RejZoR said:


> What I do know is that using High heuristics with Comodo is almost impossible to use as it'll flag almost any tool or tweak app.


False positives are fairly rare as of late as CAV checks scanned files against Comodo's DB of known safe files.


RejZoR said:


> They had heuristics set to Low in older versions which was very bearable with rare FP's and in recent version 10, heuristics are entirely disabled. Sensitivity setting is still there, but disabled by default.


I literally, out of curiosity, just downloaded and tested an installation, complete defaults. It's enabled and working fine.


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## micropage7 (Feb 25, 2018)

i've run avast for years and it's pretty good for free


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## RejZoR (Feb 25, 2018)

No it's not. File heuristics are NOT enabled by default.


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## lexluthermiester (Feb 25, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> No it's not. File heuristics are NOT enabled by default.


Ok, if you say so.


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## RejZoR (Feb 25, 2018)

No, I'm saying so because I for a fact know so. Anyone who can run Comodo can see it.


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## TheMailMan78 (Feb 25, 2018)

Again Bitdefender with MBAM and done. Zero worries and better than everything else mentioned.


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## Apocalypsee (Apr 20, 2018)

I chimed in on nearly two months old thread since I got a nasty virus last night that installs tons of nasty stuff. 

First I tried Avira. It only get around 17 threats. After cleaning it still doesn't feel right and there is still CPU miner right on task manager. Such pile of garbage so I uninstalled it. Used to trust Avira like 7 years ago. It used 2GB of storage and did nearly nothing. A waste of harddrive space.

Then I installed AVG and it's a bit better. It got about 80 threats of various stuff. After initial scanning it even scan during bootup before Windows starts. Everything seems fine but one thing persist that Windows explorer occasionally goes to 30% CPU usage for no reason. Process Explorer didn't find anything so I think it isn't over yet.

Quick Google suggest to use Malwarebytes so I did. And holy cow it detects 252 threats!!! How come Avira and AVG miss that much?


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## theFOoL (Apr 20, 2018)

Malwarebytes is known to only catch malware and  not viruses. I just use Defender and have had no issues


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## BiggieShady (Apr 20, 2018)

rk3066 said:


> Malwarebytes is known to only catch malware and not viruses.


Come on seriously, you make it look like viruses are not malware. Stop spreading misinformation because ...


Apocalypsee said:


> And holy cow it detects 252 threats!!!


... mbam detects viruses but also the whole galaxy of pup-s (potentially unwanted program such as worthless adware browser toolbars)


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## Bill_Bright (Apr 20, 2018)

rk3066 said:


> Malwarebytes is known to only catch malware and not viruses.


That's not true at all! And for the record, "malware" is a general, over all term for all *mal*icious soft*ware*, to include worms, Trojans, rootkits, and viruses and more.

It is a misconception to categorize and assume viruses are not malware.

The most likely Malwarebytes detected so many more threats than the other programs is because Malwarebytes includes PUPs (potentially unwanted programs) in that list but it is important to understand potentially unwanted is not the same as definitely unwanted.

Edit add: BiggieShady beat me too it, but worth repeating so I'll keep my post there.


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## BiggieShady (Apr 20, 2018)

@Bill_Bright nice sync, on both points


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## Space Lynx (Apr 20, 2018)

I have no idea what is going on here, just want to chime in that I have malwarebytes lifetime license, got it for $15 many moons ago, and it was the best decision I ever made. its amazing to me how many things it catches. its all i use now


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## enxo218 (Apr 20, 2018)

used to use avg free, it was unintrusive and resource friendly until 2016 when u needed accounts and passwords on it and had a persistent issue of being unable to get past windows login screen(removing it was the solution) so just switched to common sense...the technical version and have yet to be disappointed, thats my recommendation


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## jboydgolfer (Apr 20, 2018)

lynx29 said:


> I have no idea what is going on here, just want to chime in that I have malwarebytes lifetime license, got it for $15 many moons ago, and it was the best decision I ever made. its amazing to me how many things it catches. its all i use now



 Malwarebytes is great ,but sadly they ended the lifetime key option. Nowadays it's $40 for three PCs for one year , if you're lucky you can make your purchase when there's a sale and get it for $25.  It used to be that you could just type in Malwarebytes key in YouTube and search through and find a million keys that would work ,but that was before they became more popular, now it's pretty much pay or run the free version.  Their support is still awful though and I paid for it for a few years but after dealing with them for a few months to try to figure out a problem I was having on one of my devices I don't think I'm going to pay them any longer. Windows defender and the free version work perfectly fine


----------



## Vayra86 (Apr 20, 2018)

Still rocking WIndows Defender and zero issues, including no false positives (from you-know-what-can-do-that) and I do quite a few installs and uninstalls along with some more serious work on the PC. Back in the Windows 7 days I used several different free AV's and they all had their annoying quirks. WD has none and its bundled with the OS for free, heck it doesn't even update separately.

Travel light, I like it. When I feel uneasy I manually run something else to fit the occasion, usually something like HitmanPro or antimalwarebytes. Call it a second opinion


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## John Naylor (Apr 20, 2018)

AV Test site continually puts Kaspersky and BitDefender at the top.... however, BD has gone rcently gone Norton like and the if you use a site license or more than 1 box,  it's a real PITA. 

In most recent testing ... Windows Home User

https://www.av-test.org/en/antiviru...18/bitdefender-internet-security-22.0-180591/
BitDefender scored 6.0 / 6.0 / 5.0 - 100% in both categories for detection last 2 tests and 9 false positives

https://www.av-test.org/en/antiviru.../kaspersky-lab-internet-security-18.0-180557/
Kaspersky scored 6.0 / 6.0 / 6.0 - 100% in both categories for detection last 2 tests and 0 false positives

https://www.av-test.org/en/antiviru...18/microsoft-security-essentials-4.10-180547/
Microsoft Security Essentials scored 6.0 / 5.5 / 6.0 - 100 % in both categories for detection but a decent performance hit

Others:

Avast Free  - 6.0 / 5.5 / 5.5
AVG  - 6.0 / 5.5 / 5.5
Norton  - 6.0 / 6.0 / 5.5
Tend Mico  - 6.0 / 6.0 / 6.0


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## Bill_Bright (Apr 20, 2018)

John Naylor said:


> In most recent testing ... Windows Home User


IMO, this is a misrepresentation because those links go to Windows 7, a 9 year old OS where mainstream support ended over 3 years ago. It does not tell the whole story.

Check out the most recent AV-Tests for Windows 10 and click on the most important "Protection" column header to sort to see where the various products lead. No doubt some will be surprised to see how some products do, and how poorly their product of choice did.

But to that, it is important to understand that having the top rated product does NOT mean you are unsafe if you use a lower rated product. 

It is important is to use a product that scores well, no argument there. But it is more important to keep Windows and your security current, and avoid being "click-happy" on unsolicited downloads, links attachments, and popups.


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## RealNeil (Apr 20, 2018)

Bill_Bright said:


> But it is more important to keep Windows and your security current, and avoid being "click-happy" on unsolicited downloads, links attachments, and popups.



^^^This^^^


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## Apocalypsee (Apr 21, 2018)

It is true that Malwarebytes also include PUPS but out of those 252 warnings 192 of them are adware and 4 are trojans. Still my explorer eats around 30% of CPU power (eats single thread) so I still think there is some left. I run their AdwCleaner and found 33 more. Most of them are registry entry and some leftover folders oncluding two files from Windows folders. Interestingly it removed Lavasys Web Companion too. But this two programs fixed my issue and it runs on tip top condition.



Bill_Bright said:


> But it is more important to keep Windows and your security current, and avoid being "click-happy" on unsolicited downloads, links attachments, and popups.


Prevention is better than cure for sure. But even if we be cautious of our own PC but others that uses ours might not. Murphy law comes to mind. Hence this thread.


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## kajson (Apr 21, 2018)

I use Avast, though it needs some tweaking, like turning off mail signature ( insane feature), and I turn off scanning outgoing mail because I've actually spent hours once at a client figuring why he couldn't send email anymore, new OEM that was..

The big positive Avast has for me is the gaming mode / silent option, which means it never ever interrupts anything anymore you are doing. If you don't turn that on it's a horrible program. (I will never use an active virusscanner again that thinks it's ok to advertise anything at random times) I also like the  software updater function which is an easy way to update virus sensitive programs like flash or java.  I also run the comodo firewall.

Malwarebytes whenever I feel I might have visited questionable websites. Though I much prefer to run ADW cleaner first whenever I stumble upon an infected machine, because it is so much more time efficient then any other comparible cleaner.


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## RealNeil (Apr 21, 2018)

Bill_Bright said:


> But it is more important to keep Windows and your security current, and avoid being "click-happy" on unsolicited downloads, links attachments, and popups.



I guess this is called 'Best Practices' for a user to help avoid problems with a PC. It works too.



Apocalypsee said:


> But even if we be cautious of our own PC but others that uses ours might not. Murphy law comes to mind. Hence this thread.



If you have kids getting online with your PC, you _never really know_ if they're using 'Best Practices' themselves, hence the need for real-time protection. I use Webroot SecureAnywhere Anti-Virus because its extremely low overhead doesn't slow the beast down very much. Scans are fast and effective.
Also, I run the full version of Malwarebytes at the same time. Both have 'real-time' protection that does a good job.
Both of them can be found on the web for a lot less than retail at times during sales.
I need the sales because I'm running six computers here in my house and retail gets to be a lot to pay.



kajson said:


> Malwarebytes whenever I feel I might have visited questionable websites. Though I much prefer to run ADW cleaner first whenever I stumble upon an infected machine, because it is so much more time efficient then any other comparible cleaner.



Sometimes one can be called upon by family or friends to fix a morbidly-infected PC that has slowed to a crawl.
I run the Webroot program, then Malwarebytes ADW Cleaner standalone to clean what it can. Then I install the full version of Malwarebytes onto the PC and warn the parents that it will stay clean if Junior doesn't turn-off protections while surfing the web.  Sometimes they don't anymore, and sometimes they do. 

It's a crapshoot.


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## Bill_Bright (Apr 21, 2018)

Apocalypsee said:


> Prevention is better than cure for sure. But even if we be cautious of our own PC but others that uses ours might not. Murphy law comes to mind. Hence this thread.


This is true but that does not mean you have to go overboard with security. If you have other users of your computers who are less disciplined at what I call "practicing safe computing", then for sure, they need to be using standard (not Administrator) user accounts. 

But to that, several computers here are used by multiple users, including "_invincible_", "_it can never happen to me_", "_undisciplined_", _"I know what I'm doing" _ teens and their "_I know all about computers_" friends.  Plus there are other computers used by my guests with a variety of skills. 

I don't stand over the shoulders of each, watching every move they make. But my kids and grandkids (and their friends!) sure know I can easily check my network logs to see what they've been up to!

All those systems are Windows 10, use Windows Defender (WD) plus Windows Firewall (WF) and they have Malwarebytes free on them for on-demand scanning. All users (except me) sign in with a limited Standard user account. THIS IS IMPORTANT!

None of those computers have ever been compromised, going back to 2009 when they were first setup with W7 and MSE & WF, or since 2015 when they were all migrated from W7 to W10 and WD & WF.

And of course, those systems are always kept current too.


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## theFOoL (Apr 21, 2018)

Funny thing about MalwareBytes if YES it detects a lot of them BUT I also use SUPERANTISPYWARE after just to be sure


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## Cerawy (Apr 25, 2018)

I've been using Avast free but my time was running out and I was getting daily nag screens so I booted it off my computer. I have windows defender and I think that it has been operating better.

I also use the Paid version of Bitdefender which is a fully integrated system.

I set it up and set to "Autopilot" and rarely hear from it, or even know it's running, except for a weekly report and a few Anti-ransomware alerts, any new program will be prevented from writing to, or modifying, any "protected" areas, until I review and allow it

As a complete system it is unlimited devices and works with Windows, MacOS, Android, and iOS devices so provides a multi-point defence against threats getting onto my systems

I also use malwarebytes and ransomfree. I think ransomefree installed the "nodrive" problem that I see when opening up file explorer the first time, didn't have it before the installation but not 100% sure.

I also don't go to dodgy web sites or open attachments to my emails from suspicious or unknown parties.


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## John Naylor (Apr 25, 2018)

Bill_Bright said:


> IMO, this is a misrepresentation because those links go to Windows 7, a 9 year old OS where mainstream support ended over 3 years ago. It does not tell the whole story.



Why would the OS with, arguably, the more dominant market share be in any way a misrepresentation ?  Netmarketshare shows Win 7 having 50% more (44.40 % to 29.88 %) active installs than Win 10 ...Stat counter has them just about even (last I checked (February IIRC).  

https://tinyurl.com/ycx8jftg 

If you are a Win 10 user, you just have to click on the Win 10 and get the other results, certainly not beyond the capability of most forum users

And what changes ?

Kaspersky again scored 6.0 / 6.0 / 6.0 
BitDefender again didn't quite do as well with 6.0 / 6.0 / 5.0
Microsoft did worse with 6.0 / 5.4 / 5.0 

Avast Free  - Same 6.0 / 5.5 / 5.5
AVG  - Same 6.0 / 5.5 / 5.5
Norton  - did worse at  6.0 / 5.0 / 5.5
Trend Micro  - dropped  a bit to 6.0 / 5.5 / 6.0

And let's not forget, that's January / February results.  Not everyone "hits it outta the park" so to speak in every test.  

However, if you don't use the internet and don't install files from media you are also safe.  I visted a friend recently and I was to arrive before he got home... he said _"just go inside, door's open... I haven't locked my door in 30 years unless I'm outta town for cupla days"_.  So what is safe / unsafe... door locks, door locks and alarms.... locks, alarms and cameras.   Each involves a level of better protection at increased costs.

The user has to make that judgement.  So how much is your data worth ?  How much are you willing to pay to have your system cleaned.  I spent 9 hours cleaning my S-I-L's machine it had over 1200 infections with a "free solution".   As for protection being the only consideration, I reject that notion entirely.   When BD changed the management model, I went from a single download and network installs to having to download and enter information from each machine on the network, greatly increasing the time and cost of ownership.  When a AV impacts the speed of our systems, this can affect one's ability to earn their living.    Software installs can take up to 3 times longer with free solutions versus paid.  Frequently used web sites can take 10 times as long to open than paid solutions.  When AVs pick up false positives, that can mean hours of time trying to figure out where the problem is.  Like insurance, it's never really important till you have a problem.

So the questions each user should answer for themselves are ...

A.  Is my data worth paying $4 - $20 a seat for the "insurance" over a free solution ?
B.  Is my time and reduced performance impacts worth paying $4 - $20  a seat for over a free solution ?
C.  If I am going to pay for an AV, is there any reason to choose a lesser product if they cost the same  ?

Regarding C, there is ... for example, AV vendors have this habit whereby you might purchase the product at a discount for say 5 seats for $19.95 ... then at renewal time, it's now $59.95.  Several options ...

a.  Change vendors
b.  Buy new instead of renewing
c.  Wait a bit.... when ya don't renew, they tend to send out 'special' offers' to get yu back.

No different from any other PC related purchases.... if two GFX cards, cost the same and one performs better than the other in performance, power usage, temps whatever, is there a logical basis for not getting the one that performs better ... sometimes there is ... I have had users pick cards based upon color or brand loyalty, but most of the time, folks make a logical choice which provides the best performance / cost ratio for their particular usage.  If you are an avid gamer, that's all that is on ya PC and time is not a consideration, one could argue that using any AV is not justified since the system could be wiped reloaded in a  few hours.  I have 30 years of financial and project records on my PC which is all backed up.   But if my system was fudged from an infection... restoring all that is a several hours of my time.   And that time is worth the cost of a top notch AV utility more than 50 times over.


----------



## Bill_Bright (Apr 25, 2018)

John Naylor said:


> Why would the OS with, arguably, the more dominant market share be in any way a misrepresentation ?


I already said why. You base your entire argument on Windows 7. That does not tell the whole story. W7 is a 9 year old OS where mainstream support ended over 3 years ago. And extended support ends in less than 2 years. 

As for market share, it depends on who you listen to and how they interpret and present their stats. Yes, there may still be more W7 users out there in use today, but new sales go to W10. As older systems are replaced, even Netmarketshare will be forced to admit W10 is more popular than W7.  Note that StatCounter now shows Windows 10 market share increases at the expense of Windows 7. 

Regardless, my point remains the same. Your claim does not tell the whole story. W7 is going away. It may go down kicking and screaming just like XP, but its fate is sealed. Everyone needs to accept that because they cannot change it. 

So I say it is time to look ahead instead of clinging to the past. 

As for your SIL's infected system, you are trying to imply because he used a "free solution" he got infected (with over 1200 infections! Yeah right!) and if he used a paid solution, he would not have. Bullfeathers! The best security system in the world is easily thwarted if the careless and click-happy user opens the door and lets the bad guy in.


John Naylor said:


> As for protection being the only consideration, I reject that notion entirely.


Huh? Nobody in this thread ever suggested protection is the only consideration.


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## theFOoL (Apr 25, 2018)

Many here think AV slows down the system. That may be true depending on the AV you use though. I just use Defender and no issues since it's built in


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## Countryside (Apr 25, 2018)

In my experience i would say Avast or Bitdefender two most lightweight AVs and they both have a very good detection rate.

PS: Op you should add a Vote.


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## bogmali (Apr 25, 2018)

Countryside said:


> Op you should add a Vote.



Great idea!!

Done


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## theFOoL (Apr 25, 2018)

I've used AVG AVAST! and Avira over the years and now I just use Windows Defender as I know what Websites not to Enter plus I use a ADBlocker


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## Bill_Bright (Apr 25, 2018)

Perhaps the title of thread should be changed too since "just an anti*virus*" may be confusing to some. They are all anti*malware* tools that look for much more than just viruses. The free program typically don't have a lot of extra "fluff" and features most users just don't need.


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## theFOoL (Apr 25, 2018)

Yeah but only a few scan for both "I think?" but still using MalwareBytes and SUPERANTISPYWARE is recommended


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## Bill_Bright (Apr 25, 2018)

rk3066 said:


> Yeah but only a few scan for both "I think?"


No. That's part of the problem. It is not "both". 

"Malware" is a catch-all term for *mal*icious soft*ware*.  Malware includes viruses, Trojans, worms, rootkits, ransomware, spyware, keyloggers - any software with malicious intent. That's why programs like Avast Antivirus and Avira Antivirus claim to scan for all threats, not just viruses. And programs like Malwarebytes and other "Security" and malware programs scan for viruses too.

The difference in terms came about because in the beginning, there were separate programs for each type threat and the word "malware" was not even created yet.



> but still using MalwareBytes and SUPERANTISPYWARE is recommended


Not that much.  Malwarebytes yes, but not so much SAS anymore. We definitely don't need both and I don't know of any security experts who recommend both.


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## theFOoL (Apr 25, 2018)

Well I just have sas for just in case MalwareBytes doesn't scan completely all the threats. It's happened before on some pc's I've done. I just use the free version of sas


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## Bill_Bright (Apr 26, 2018)

rk3066 said:


> Well I just have sas for just in case MalwareBytes doesn't scan completely all the threats. It's happened before on some pc's I've done. I just use the free version of sas


I think the issue there is what SAS considers a "threat". Not all "tracking cookies", for example, are threats yet SAS may tag them as threats. I see it similar to what Malwarebytes calls a PUP. "_Potentially_ unwanted" is more an opinion rather than fact. I have had Malwarebytes tag programs I know to be safe as PUPs. 

But, while "false positives" are annoying (if not automatically quarantined breaking something wanted), a false positive is better than letting a real threat that does damage slip by.


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## Anarchy0110 (Apr 26, 2018)

Avast and AVG serve me quite well through the years. Bitdefender is indeed moving to the Norton realm. Panda does have quite a bit of false detections.
Installing Comodo atm, gotta give it a try.


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## Countryside (Apr 26, 2018)

Faith[ROG].Anarchy said:


> Avast and AVG serve me quite well through the years. Bitdefender is indeed moving to the Norton realm. Panda does have quite a bit of false detections.
> Installing Comodo atm, gotta give it a try.



I have used  all the free AVs mentioned in this thread and the goal was to find the best detection rate and resources management and the
most lightweights are Avast , Bitdefender and Panda but Panda relies on active connection because its cloud based and dose not have a database and yes the false side needs a bit of improvement.

About the Comodo it has a decent detection but is heavy on the resource side and its compatibility with Win10 needs improvement.
AVG is fine if you are not using a weaker pc. Last year Avast acquired AVG so the lightweight should improve.

As i said before Avast or Bitdefender free are the best choices in my experiences and if you are using Win10 the Defender does a fine job but it still needs improvements of the detection side.


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## Anarchy0110 (Apr 26, 2018)

Countryside said:


> I have used  all the free AVs mentioned in this thread and the goal was to find the best detection rate and resources management and the
> most lightweights are Avast , Bitdefender and Panda but Panda relies on active connection because its cloud based and dose not have a database and yes the false side needs a bit of improvement.
> 
> About the Comodo it has a decent detection but is heavy on the resource side and its compatibility with Win10 needs improvement.
> ...



Great to hear this!


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## Bill_Bright (Apr 26, 2018)

Most (if not all) are cloud based now - at least in part. And that is a good thing. It allows the providers to make up-to-the-second threat information available to our scanners. 

Off line scanners are nice, but don't generally have the most recent threat information.


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## lexluthermiester (Apr 27, 2018)

Countryside said:


> About the Comodo it has a decent detection but is heavy on the resource side


While this is true for a default installation config, once "properly" configured it runs much better. What sells Comodo for me is the fine-grained application and firewall management. IMHO, currently the best single solution suite out there.


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## cornemuse (Apr 27, 2018)

Does anyone use 360 Total Security??


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## HammerON (Apr 27, 2018)

Late to the party, but I suggest Windows Defender to friends and use it for my builds.


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## TheMailMan78 (Apr 27, 2018)

Not a single one listed is in the same ballpark as Bitdefender. If you are running anything less you are at risk.


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## RejZoR (Apr 27, 2018)

Kaspersky is for sure and avast!/AVG is not far behind.


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## lexluthermiester (Apr 27, 2018)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Not a single one listed is in the same ballpark as Bitdefender. If you are running anything less you are at risk.


That is an opinion not supported by risk assessment testing. It is good but not the best of the list. And this list leaves out several of the tested best.


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## TheMailMan78 (Apr 28, 2018)

lexluthermiester said:


> That is an opinion not supported by risk assessment testing. It is good but not the best of the list. And this
> list leaves out several of the tested best.


Actually it has been tested.


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## lexluthermiester (Apr 28, 2018)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Actually it has been tested.


I didn't say it has not been tested. I said that your conclusion is not supported by "risk assessment testing", which directly states that testing has been done and that Bitdefender is in fact worse than Windows Defender which has proven to be less than solidly effective.


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## Solaris17 (Apr 28, 2018)

lexluthermiester said:


> I didn't say it has not been tested. I said that your conclusion is not supported by "risk assessment testing", which directly states that testing has been done and that Bitdefender is in fact worse than Windows Defender which has proven to be less than solidly effective.



I mean we can play "dueling sources" all day but the reality is unless you actually study or work in the field or even for some of these companies your word is no better than anyone else's.

https://chart.av-comparatives.org/chart1.php


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## lexluthermiester (Apr 28, 2018)

Solaris17 said:


> I mean we can play "dueling sources" all day but the reality is unless you actually study or work in the field or even for some of these companies your word is no better than anyone else's.
> 
> https://chart.av-comparatives.org/chart1.php


That's a good point. Not all testing is created equal. However, the risk testing I was referring to includes several solutions not included in many mainstream testing runs.


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## RejZoR (Apr 28, 2018)

You also need to know how to read AV-C's chart for Real-World protection. It's not just enough to look at it and see the latest one scoring highest. You need to look through several months if not years to observe a pattern. Consistency is what matters. If one has 100% once and then declines or jumps up and down constantly, it means they still haven't figured it out. If they consistently score 100% with low or no FP's, they are on to something. Bitdefender has been consistently scoring very high, same for Kaspersky, Trend Micro and Panda. The rest are not as consistent and while they may be good options, they may not be as "idiot proof".

Then again, there are alternate options. For example, avast! can fluctuate in scores in blacklist mode (normal AV mode). But if you enable Hardened Mode (Aggressive) you employ one of the world's largest "Ai" assisted whitelists. It'll probably block 100% of stuff you throw at it every time with next to no issues with safe and verified stuff. That's based off my internal testing where I ran this feature on several systems for full year and got no response from users that something is preventing them from using programs they want. Or was so insignificant they didn't even bother to contact me. And also by using this mode myself. There was always just this very small timeframe where things were blocked and even that only affected very new rare releases not used by many users worldwide. This also shows the power of 500 million endpoints participating inside a cloud which is the worlds largest security cloud network (which happened after avast! merger with AVG). They are however being a bit too conservative for my taste and they work on things more cautiously which is why they aren't scoring perfect 100% every time in blacklist mode. Which is a shame, but in a way I understand them. Bitdefender and Panda are more aggressive on that front.


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## Countryside (Apr 28, 2018)

cornemuse said:


> Does anyone use 360 Total Security??



Yes i have tried it and i suggest that you avoid it.


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## Melvis (Apr 28, 2018)

How in the world is Windows Defender got the most votes?  Must be alot of Microsoft employees here jesus...


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## las (Apr 28, 2018)

These days, Windows Defender by far. Atleast when using Windows 10. No need for 3rd party AV. Microsoft knows best how to protect their own OS.
Windows Defender scores very high in independent AV tests and has minimal performance impact while doing it.

You can do a manual Malwarebytes scan occationally if you want more... Never caught anything here when Defender has been active...



Melvis said:


> How in the world is Windows Defender got the most votes?  Must be alot of Microsoft employees here jesus...



Not really. Windows Defender is very much improved in Windows 10 compared to earlier Windows versions. It's a fact. 3rd party AV often does more harm than good. Google it. Or wait, I have a few links for you:

http://news.thewindowsclub.com/windows-defender-the-most-deployed-solution-in-enterprise-92052/
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/01/antivirus-is-bad/
https://www.pcworld.com/article/302...-could-make-your-company-more-vulnerable.html
http://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-...virus-software-poisons-your-pc/article/484781
https://www.firstpost.com/tech/news...oftware-does-more-harm-than-good-3696773.html

More and more are moving away from 3rd party AV, and for good reason; Waste of money and ressources.
Talking Windows; Brain + Windows Defender + OS/App updates = As good as it gets.


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## Melvis (Apr 28, 2018)

las said:


> These days, Windows Defender by far. Atleast when using Windows 10. No need for 3rd party AV. Microsoft knows best how to protect their own OS.
> Windows Defender scores very high in independent AV tests and has minimal performance impact while doing it.
> 
> You can do a manual Malwarebytes scan occationally if you want more... Never caught anything here when Defender has been active...
> ...



Not in my experience and I do this for a living, repairing computers, I have spent yrs cleaning PC's with people been told that Windows Defender is all you need, its a load of BS, here in the real world its useless, ive cleaned countless PC's because people dont install a proper AV solution. I just had one very recently got told that Windows Defender is all you need on your brand new Windows 10 PC, brought it to me months later complaining about it been slow, and not connecting to the internet, soon as I noticed it had no AV I knew straight away that it had viruses on it, and sure enough it had plenty! 

I will never ever say that Windows defender is any good as I know for a fact in the real world it is not unless your a super safe user on your PC and never click on anything bad, which sadly in the real world just doesnt happen.


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## las (Apr 28, 2018)

Melvis said:


> Not in my experience and I do this for a living, repairing computers, I have spent yrs cleaning PC's with people been told that Windows Defender is all you need, its a load of BS, here in the real world its useless, ive cleaned countless PC's because people dont install a proper AV solution. I just had one very recently got told that Windows Defender is all you need on your brand new Windows 10 PC, brought it to me months later complaining about it been slow, and not connecting to the internet, soon as I noticed it had no AV I knew straight away that it had viruses on it, and sure enough it had plenty!
> 
> I will never ever say that Windows defender is any good as I know for a fact in the real world it is not unless your a super safe user on your PC and never click on anything bad, which sadly in the real world just doesnt happen.



Yeah I do this for a living too. No AV will stop morons. Working brain is required. You can read the links and the AV tests yourself. Windows Defender is beating most 3rd party AV now. It's right up there with Bitdefender and Kaspersky which are the absolute best 3rd party AV's and the only one I'd even consider.


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## Bill_Bright (Apr 28, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> You need to look through several months if not years to observe a pattern. Consistency is what matters.


Years? I disagree.  It suggests a product considered the best years ago with Vista or XP must still be top rated today with Windows 10. Just not true. It also suggests the threats from years ago are the same, or represent the same challenges as those threats out in the wild today. Again, not true. I'll go along with checking the last few months to ensure a top or bottom rating is not a "one-off" rating. But not years. 

And if you are going to put all your faith in those synthetic laboratory tests (and I don't), make sure you look at the results for your OS. Suggesting, for example, Windows Defender with Windows 10 must be bad because Microsoft Security Essentials with W7 didn't score well is misrepresenting the facts.



Melvis said:


> I do this for a living, repairing computers, I have spent yrs cleaning PC's with people been told that Windows Defender is all you need, its a load of BS,


And anyone who says [fill in the blank] is "all you need" is a BSer is feeding others a load of BS. Regardless your solution of choice, users should always use a secondary scanner to verify nothing sneaked on by. Why? Because even the best security is easily thwarted if the user opens the door and lets the badguy in. That exactly why "socially engineered" methods of malware distribution works so effectively. Users must keep their systems current and not be "click-happy" on unsolicited links, downloads, attachments, and links. 

Your comments about WD are, IMO, tunnel visioned. For many years in my shop, malware removal was the biggest service we provided. It was great for business! But it sure wasn't only or even mostly MSE/WD users who were infected. No solution was immune! For many years infected Windows 7 computers using Norton and McAfee dominated. Why? Because those two products were commonly pre-installed on factory made computers bought by consumers. Next was probably AVG because that was widely suggested, but we saw and still see systems _supposedly_ fully protected by Kaspersky, ESET, BitDefender, Avira, Trend Micro and [fill in the blank] too.

And the fact of the matter is, the most common element in these systems was "outdated" and modified Windows defaults! That is, users dinking with Windows defaults thinking they knew better than Microsoft. And of the systems that ran slow, most were simply full of clutter, 1000s and 1000s of cookies, extra toolbars, auto-updaters for programs they rarely used, etc. Hard drives nearly full and severely fragmented (again, because users dinked with settings). Tiny or no page files because they were told by some wannabe memory management "expert"   claiming no PF was needed when lots of RAM was installed.

Since W8.x came out, infected systems coming into my shop have decreased dramatically such that my core business (IT consulting and custom computers) is now the biggest service segment again.  Why? Because Windows 8.x and Windows 10 keep themselves updated - if the users don't dink with the settings. Not because they switched away from WD.

As las suggests, the user is ALWAYS the weakest link in security. Again, they must keep Windows current and not be "click-happy". Also important is to always, as in EVERY SINGLE TIME, select the "custom" install option when installing 3rd party applications to ensure you have to the option to "opt-out" of unwanted toolbars, search engines, updaters and adware.

Frankly, IMO, these constant disparagings of one solution or another ad nauseam is just silly. Virtually will protect the computer if the user would only compute defensively. Just like a Ford or Chevy pickup truck will serve those owners well, Camry vs Accord, Intel vs AMD, or NVIDIA vs AMD will provide good service. Not having the top rated (for that month) product does NOT mean your product of choice will fail to do its job.


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## RejZoR (Apr 28, 2018)

Yes, years. Windows 10 has been out for how long? It was released in 2015. It's almost 3 years now. So, yeah, track record through years is a valid statement.

As for Symantec and McAfee systems being infected, it wasn't because those two are necessarily bad. It was because those are paid products that often stop working after like 6 months. Most people don't understand that just having AV installed is not enough, it needs to be updated regularly. I've seen people who were dismissing "Expired" warnings. Those are the kinds who get infected the most, not properly updated Norton from today which is considered as very effective.


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## Bill_Bright (Apr 28, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> As for Symantec and McAfee systems being infected, it wasn't because those two are necessarily bad. It was because those are paid products that often stop working after like 6 months.


No!!! You weren't in my shop! We (me and the other techs in my shop) are not so stupid we can't tell if a product is expired or not. Don't be silly. These computers were not infected because Norton and McAfee expired and stopped working. They became infected because Norton and McAfee failed to do their jobs properly.

Yes, those free "trial" versions expired then nagged relentlessly. So do all other paid programs. But running without any antimalware solution is a totally different and off-topic scenario.

And just because Windows 10 has been out a few years does NOT suggest Windows 10 from July 2015 is the exact same product as Windows 10 in April 2018 - or the same Windows as Windows 7. It also does not suggest the anti-malware solution from 2015 is the exact same product today in April 2018. Is a 2015 Accord the same car as a 2018 Accord? No. 

Does looking years back at security solutions hurt? Probably not. But does it do any good? I say no. 



RejZoR said:


> Most people don't understand that just having AV installed is not enough, it needs to be updated regularly.


Bullfeathers. Again, that's just a silly argument. Come on! Some common sense has to come into play here in this debate. First and foremost, security programs, including WD, will keep themselves updated automatically as long as the user didn't dink with the default setting. At the very least, they all announce an update is available.

As for users ignoring expiration (or update) notices, what does that have to do with the price of rice in China?  That just proves las's and my point - the users have to have a brain - and use it. Not doing so has nothing do to with the antimalware solution installed.


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## RejZoR (Apr 28, 2018)

Windows 10 is basically the same as the day it came out. Anything that runs on old one will on new one. Anything they plugged were exploit holes. This isn't Win9x to WinNT comparison where stuff (including malware) stopped working because of a massive OS change.


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## Bill_Bright (Apr 28, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> Windows 10 is basically the same as the day it came out


No. More bullfeathers. Windows 10 has had several major "anniversary" and "creators" updates since first released - updates that affected a significant portion of the kernel and critical files.  Saying it is basically the same is like saying the original XP was the basically the same as XP SP3. There have been many significant changes in Windows 10, W10 security, and WD since W10 was first introduced.

Just because something runs on the Windows today means nothing. CCleaner runs on XP as well as W10. Does that mean W10 and XP are basically the same? No.

And "stopped" working because of an update is totally separate from maintaining the same level of protection.


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## RejZoR (Apr 28, 2018)

Oh boy, I'm not in the mood for arguing because someone will get triggered and accuse me of derailing things...


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## Countryside (Apr 28, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> Oh boy, I'm not in the mood for arguing because someone will get triggered and accuse me of derailing things...



There is no point in arguing If someone gets triggered its their own fault.  
We are here to share experience, discuss findings and some constructive criticism is  always good.


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## lexluthermiester (Apr 28, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> Windows 10 is basically the same as the day it came out.


Got to agree with Bill on this. No, it isn't. And Windows Defender is as annoying as it is ineffective. It's literally the the first thing I remove from a Windows 10 installation.


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## Jetster (Apr 28, 2018)

You forgot one option. No antivirus    I just use malwarebytes paid


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## las (Apr 28, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> Windows 10 is basically the same as the day it came out.


Haha, not even close.


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## RejZoR (Apr 28, 2018)

las said:


> Haha, not even close.



Just because your "user" experience "on top" is different, it doesn't mean there were dramatic changes underneath. Because there weren't. In an essence, Windows 10 still shares metric shit ton of stuff with Vista...


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## DRDNA (Apr 28, 2018)

Jetster said:


> You forgot one option. No antivirus    I just use malwarebytes paid


I too have recently turned off Windows Defender and instead just use Malewarebytes Premium.....using WD is not needed with MP.


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## lexluthermiester (Apr 28, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> Windows 10 still shares metric shit ton of stuff with Vista...


Shares, but is nowhere near identical to. But we're off topic, back to the AV/AM talk..


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## therealmeep (Apr 29, 2018)

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I happen to use Defender, Malwarebytes, and Bitdefender, had avast at one point because i noticed it seemed a little better at detection on my machines, but it just hammered the cpu on all 3 machines i tried it on. I also tend to test all of the AVs i use in 1 specific vm, and I noticed avast had better more consistent detection, Malwarebytes was pretty damn good, AVG was pretty crappy, and norton/macafee both missed the majority of my tested malware/files.


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## theFOoL (Apr 29, 2018)

Just a thing here about Defender... It was in Windows 7 but not as it is now. You had to scan manually I think? And the findings of Malware wasn't that great? But with W10 it just all came together I'm guessing. Also with W8.1 wasn't Defender like W7 just not completely a AV like W10 is now


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## therealmeep (Apr 29, 2018)

rk3066 said:


> Just a thing here about Defender... It was in Windows 7 but not as it is now. You had to scan manually I think? And the findings of Malware wasn't that great? But with W10 it just all came together I'm guessing. Also with W8.1 wasn't Defender like W7 just not completely a AV like W10 is now


Correct, in 7 it was a manual setup thing, with the ability to schedule, but this was mostly over user's heads, 10 is much more user friendly, it was middle of the road for finding malware, and I am not as familiar with 8.1's version of defender, however it was more in the vein of Win 7 vs 10.


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## Countryside (Apr 29, 2018)

Oh yeah i forgot to mention a good +1 for you free antivirus specially when you are using Defender is 
Emsisoft Emergency Kit it requires no install and it has great detection rate.


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## BiggieShady (Apr 29, 2018)

Let's not forget fantastic autoruns.exe from sysinternals, truly helpful tool when dealing with stuff running on windows startup ... it has automatic file hash check using VirusTotal api ... and the ability to show only files that didn't pass the check.


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## RejZoR (Apr 29, 2018)

All of this is post infection. The point of AV's is proactivity. Emsisoft or Autoruns are cleanup tools, not prevention. In that case it's better to just use Windows Defender. It's a slow AV, but it's better than nothing, that's for sure.


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## BiggieShady (Apr 29, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> Emsisoft or Autoruns are cleanup tools, not prevention.


Emsisoft aside, but I wouldn't call Autoruns a cleanup tool - it's only for detection purposes, and with or without infection you should know what's running at startup on your system IMO


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## lexluthermiester (Apr 29, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> In that case it's better to just use Windows Defender.


If it were the only thing going, sure, but it isn't and is nowhere near the best at detection or clean-up. So that is unwise advice.


RejZoR said:


> but it's better than nothing, that's for sure.


Maybe, but again there many better choices.



BiggieShady said:


> Emsisoft aside, but I wouldn't call Autoruns a cleanup tool - it's only for detection purposes, and with or without infection you should know what's running at startup on your system IMO


Agreed!


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## RejZoR (Apr 29, 2018)

What I was stating was in regards of using just Emsisoft or Autoruns. They are not a protection and in that case Windows Defender is a better option. Given the criticism of Windows Defender I always get backlash for, it should be obvious I'm not saying that Windows Defender is a good option. It's just that it's better than nothing.


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## lexluthermiester (Apr 29, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> What I was stating was in regards of using just Emsisoft or Autoruns. They are not a protection and in that case Windows Defender is a better option. Given the criticism of Windows Defender I always get backlash for, it should be obvious I'm not saying that Windows Defender is a good option. It's just that it's better than nothing.


Ah, I see what you're saying.


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## BiggieShady (Apr 29, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> I'm not saying that Windows Defender is a good option. It's just that it's better than nothing.


Backlash schmacklash  ... but it's still unclear why are you ignoring vast improvements Windows Defender went through


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## RejZoR (Apr 29, 2018)

BiggieShady said:


> Backlash schmacklash  ... but it's still unclear why are you ignoring vast improvements Windows Defender went through



Because the very basic one, file scanning is teh slowest I've ever seen of all antiviruses and they haven't done a single thing through years to improve it. It's just as slow as it was what, 5 years ago? It's terrible. And we're talking on a system with high end 12 threads CPU, 32GB RAM and super fast SSD. Imagine this thing running on an office computer with 5400 RPM HDD. It just affects things too much to give it a credit for everything they stick on top of it. I mean, what's the point of users will avoid it from the get go because it's such a sluggish snail? There is no point in having all the extras if foundation is terrible...


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## BiggieShady (Apr 29, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> file scanning is teh slowest


It makes sense now why people who use WD only for realtime protection (scheduled scans off) and supplement the rest with MBAM free edition, have no issues with it


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## RejZoR (Apr 29, 2018)

By scanning I mean "real time scanning" which means EVERYTHING works slow as a poo because of it.


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## BiggieShady (Apr 29, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> slow as a poo


Not that I ever noticed so be that as it may ... but I gotta say, you have one colorful hyperbole right there


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## Bill_Bright (Apr 29, 2018)

rk3066 said:


> Just a thing here about Defender... It was in Windows 7 but not as it is now.


This was another one of Microsoft's misguided (IMO) and confusing naming schemes. The Windows Defender in Windows 7 is not, and never was the same Windows Defender as in W8/W10. They are two totally different programs. Windows Defender for Windows 7 was an anti-spyware program only. It was previously the Giant Antispyware Micrsoft bought, rebranded, then gave away. 



BiggieShady said:


> Backlash schmacklash  ... but it's still unclear why are you ignoring vast improvements Windows Defender went through


I agree. Especially for Windows 10, it is much more than basic. 

To dismiss summarily a good program because it is thought to be too slow is not realistic, and frankly, makes no sense for a "real-time" scanner. How often do you manually run scans? I cannot remember the last time I did, except on individual files/attachments I just downloaded. And to that WD is really quick. See for yourself. Download a file, CCleaner for example, and save it to your desktop. Then right-click scan with Windows Defender, then right-click scan with Malwarebytes, you will see WD blows the socks of Malwarebytes.


RejZoR said:


> By scanning I mean "real time scanning" which means EVERYTHING works slow as a poo because of it.


That's just not true. Your entire rant is about speed and it is not justified. If your system is bogged down that much WD, then the problem is your system. I am responsible for dozens of systems running WD and if the problem was as you claim, I would have clients yelling at me right and left. It is not happening. Nor are they getting infected.

Again, look at AV-Test and click on the Protection tap to sort on that field. WD beats out many popular alternatives. Now click on Performance and see that it again beats out many popular alternatives. 

I am convinced if Windows Defender didn't have the Microsoft brand on it, most of the haters here would be opened minded about it, and think differently.


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## lexluthermiester (Apr 29, 2018)

Bill_Bright said:


> I am convinced if Windows Defender didn't have the Microsoft brand on it, most of the haters here would be opened minded about it, and think differently.


Performance matters. Defender doesn't. It often interfers with normal tasks of users and bogs the system down with needless and often ill timed full scans. It's only gained notoriety because it's included with Windows, otherwise it would have been a dismal market failure and forgotten mere months after release.


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## Bill_Bright (Apr 29, 2018)

lexluthermiester said:


> Performance matters. Defender doesn't. It often interfers with normal tasks of users and bogs the system down with needless and often ill timed full scans


Of course performance matters. That's why I pointed that out above. Did you see where it outperforms Trend Micro, BullGuard, G Data, Norton, Comodo, and the crowd favorite ESET? Did you note it was only 1/2 point down from the top?


lexluthermiester said:


> It often interfers with normal tasks of users and bogs the system down with needless and often ill timed full scans.


Bullfeathers! There is not a scanner out there that doesn't "often" bog down systems. This has been a common complaint levied against all scanners for decades and probably the #1, or close to it, reason users switch to another scanner.

These are the same biased complaints we hear all the time from folks who have not bothered to check their facts, or the program. You run on preconceived notions and falsehoods instead of the facts. These are the falsehoods spewed by users who claim, "It's literally the the first thing I remove from a Windows 10 installation." They don't know it, they just know they don't like it! 

*If Windows Defender is running scans at "ill times" for you, change the schedule! *It's a piece of cake! Security and Maintenance > Maintenance > Change maintenance settings > Run maintenance tasks daily at [pick the hour that is convenient for you!]. Not hard at all.

Mine runs at 2am. It does not interrupt me. It does not bog my systems down.


lexluthermiester said:


> It's only gained notoriety because it's included with Windows


 No. You are wrong again. You ignore the fact it started out as Microsoft Security Essentials which was a separate download (not included with Windows) that people tried and guess what? They liked it because it worked! And why did they try it? Because they were tired of AVG, Norton and others bogging down their systems. It was NOT a dismal market failure or forgotten mere months after release. It is still widely used by many W7 users, just as WD is widely used by many W8 and W10 users - as clearly indicated by the survey results above. Or do you consider us all fools?


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## RejZoR (Apr 29, 2018)

Bill_Bright said:


> This was another one of Microsoft's misguided (IMO) and confusing naming schemes. The Windows Defender in Windows 7 is not, and never was the same Windows Defender as in W8/W10. They are two totally different programs. Windows Defender for Windows 7 was an anti-spyware program only. It was previously the Giant Antispyware Micrsoft bought, rebranded, then gave away.
> 
> I agree. Especially for Windows 10, it is much more than basic.
> 
> ...



Sure, a 4.5 GHz 12 thread system with 32GB of RAM and super fast 2TB SSD is the problem. Same problem that runs circles around most new systems even today, despite its age. I also don't care what some test says because that's not what I've seen on ANY system. Not on single one of them. It was always slow no matter what system it was. And still is slow. I trust detection tests, but this performance test is pure BS. Because it doesn't line up with anything I've seen IRL.

I don't want to be "insulting" again, but you don't seem to understand shit. WD is slow at exactly that. At real-time scanning. And t's stupid slow. I've tested literally all AV's in existence and not a single one slows things down as noticeably as WD. Not even those that performed "poorly" in AV Test performance tests. I don't give a damn about on-demand scans, the scan time s irrelevant there unless it takes 3 days to finish. Real-time matters because it affects everything.

As for me just bitching over it because it has a Microsoft label on it, that's BS too. You may not know, but I do. The engine used to be RAV Antivirus. People were raving about it, but I frankly never seen anything particularly spectacular about it.

Now I'm gonna stop participating here, because no matter what I'll say you'll keep on defending WD like a holy grail, like the best thing after sliced garlic and butter bread even though it's none of that. It's alright, but ANY free solution is vastly better than WD at nearly everything but maybe ease of use as WD has nearly no controls. If you ignore that, there are tons of way better products that have better performance, detection and speed wise.


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## TheMailMan78 (Apr 29, 2018)

Solaris17 said:


> I mean we can play "dueling sources" all day but the reality is unless you actually study or work in the field or even for some of these companies your word is no better than anyone else's.
> 
> https://chart.av-comparatives.org/chart1.php


Hmmm look at that....Bitdefender out did all of the with zero false positives.....gee who would have thought?


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## lexluthermiester (Apr 29, 2018)

Bill_Bright said:


> Or do you consider us all fools?


No I consider you a shill for Microsoft. Your sig shows that you're a "MS-MVP" so of course you are going to have a bias(forced or otherwise) for a Microsoft product.


Bill_Bright said:


> *If Windows Defender is running scans at "ill times" for you, change the schedule! *It's a piece of cake! Security and Maintenance > Maintenance > Change maintenance settings > Run maintenance tasks daily at [pick the hour that is convenient for you!]. Not hard at all.


That's a power-user setting and difficult to find, especially in Windows 10. No normal user is going to find it. Those settings need to be in the common controls. Your example is a perfect reason why other AV/AM suites are better for the general public. That, along with all of the other many annoyances it causes, is why Defender is removed(read deleted) from each and every Windows installation I do. The root folder is left in place and access is denied to the "System" and "Trusted Installer" user groups to prevent it from being reinstalled in an update. Then a proper and competent AV/AM is installed.



Bill_Bright said:


> No. You are wrong again. You ignore the fact it started out as Microsoft Security Essentials which was a separate download (not included with Windows)


Actually, you are wrong. Windows Defender was included by default starting with Windows Vista. MSE added on to some of that functionality, but was mostly aimed at Windows XP users. That was the shpeal which Microsoft Reps gave when they visited my store.



TheMailMan78 said:


> Hmmm look at that....Bitdefender out did all of the with zero false positives.....gee who would have thought?


True. Worthy of another look. By that list it would seem that many an AV/AM suite that used to be crap are now worth a look. Bill linked the Windows 10 list. Here's the Windows 7 list, which is newer;
https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-windows/windows-7/


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## theFOoL (Apr 30, 2018)

Hmm seems the normal person would just stick with *MSE *


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## Melvis (Apr 30, 2018)

las said:


> Yeah I do this for a living too. No AV will stop morons. Working brain is required. You can read the links and the AV tests yourself. Windows Defender is beating most 3rd party AV now. It's right up there with Bitdefender and Kaspersky which are the absolute best 3rd party AV's and the only one I'd even consider.



Its not about stopping its about prevention. No matter how "safe" a user is and or how "good" a AV is, its all about prevention to minimize the damage that could be caused on a system. Sending me links isnt going to convince me as I have seen plenty in the past say the exact same thing when its a load of BS and very biased. I rather see things done in real time there is alot less bias towards a product, so I like to watch these three guys doing there testing on AV's.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKGe7fZ_S788Jaspxg-_5Sg

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClbIm1RGcH9d9Tj0Xtj87OA

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMVochGJH4ejgozWHd4tg0Q



Bill_Bright said:


> And anyone who says [fill in the blank] is "all you need" is a BSer is feeding others a load of BS. Regardless your solution of choice, users should always use a secondary scanner to verify nothing sneaked on by. Why? Because even the best security is easily thwarted if the user opens the door and lets the badguy in. That exactly why "socially engineered" methods of malware distribution works so effectively. Users must keep their systems current and not be "click-happy" on unsolicited links, downloads, attachments, and links.



Exactly so if anyone that says that Windows Defender is "all you need" or "will do the job" is just feeding total BS because your always going to get the common everyday user thats going to click on every damn thing and just "expects" the system to protect them. I always tell people to be careful with your email links that you get and facebook links and to install and run a second on demand scanner like malware-bytes and keep there system up to date, sadly not everyone does this hence why I suggest something a bit more reliable and not rely on WD as I spent yrs when I first opened my doors cleaning PC's that didnt have a AV installed, since then the PC's that come in with Viruses has gone down 90%, its rare to see one come in and if I do its because they didnt update there AV most of the time. 



Bill_Bright said:


> Your comments about WD are, IMO, tunnel visioned. For many years in my shop, malware removal was the biggest service we provided. It was great for business! But it sure wasn't only or even mostly MSE/WD users who were infected. No solution was immune! For many years infected Windows 7 computers using Norton and McAfee dominated. Why? Because those two products were commonly pre-installed on factory made computers bought by consumers. Next was probably AVG because that was widely suggested, but we saw and still see systems _supposedly_ fully protected by Kaspersky, ESET, BitDefender, Avira, Trend Micro and [fill in the blank] too.



Thats not how you do business, I prefer to run my business as truthfully as possible, yes it might be "good for business" but its basically lying and deceiving the client and I know for a fact the original Computer Business here in town went by that practice and within 3 weeks of me starting up my business he closed his doors after 7yrs of running and within 6months his business went under because of his poor business practice ripping off people and putting MSE on everyone's computer and claiming it was good and then charging god knows what to clean there PC's and here I am after 8.5yrs still going. Like I said above its all about prevention to the highest %, yes no system is immune but you can minimize the damage by installing a better product over WD/MSE thats a fact. 



Bill_Bright said:


> And the fact of the matter is, the most common element in these systems was "outdated" and modified Windows defaults! That is, users dinking with Windows defaults thinking they knew better than Microsoft. And of the systems that ran slow, most were simply full of clutter, 1000s and 1000s of cookies, extra toolbars, auto-updaters for programs they rarely used, etc. Hard drives nearly full and severely fragmented (again, because users dinked with settings). Tiny or no page files because they were told by some wannabe memory management "expert" claiming no PF was needed when lots of RAM was installed.
> 
> Since W8.x came out, infected systems coming into my shop have decreased dramatically such that my core business (IT consulting and custom computers) is now the biggest service segment again.  Why? Because Windows 8.x and Windows 10 keep themselves updated - if the users don't dink with the settings. Not because they switched away from WD.
> 
> ...



I agree with everyone else you have said


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## RejZoR (Apr 30, 2018)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Hmmm look at that....Bitdefender out did all of the with zero false positives.....gee who would have thought?



I remmeber Bitdefender from days when it was rather mediocre and INCREDIBLY buggy. It still has some dumb glitches, mainly in free version, but at least they really ramped up detection which is probably one of the most consistent ones for years.


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## Bill_Bright (Apr 30, 2018)

lexluthermiester said:


> No I consider you a shill for Microsoft. Your sig shows that you're a "MS-MVP" so of course you are going to have a bias(forced or otherwise) for a Microsoft product.


That's because you obviously don't understand the MVP program. If I were a shill for MS, why would I risk my MVP status by calling many of their decisions and policies "misguided" as I did in Post #167 above?

I put that link and info in my sig so others can see I might have some clue what I am talking about - instead of just expecting everyone to believe me just because I said it.


Melvis said:


> Thats not how you do business, I prefer to run my business as truthfully as possible, yes it might be "good for business"


There might some confusion here. I agree 100% - that's no way to run a shop. What I meant was, several years ago, most of our business was cleaning infected computers. But that is not the case these days because modern versions of Windows, in particular, Windows 10 (if users don't dink with the defaults) are more secure. So are browsers, which is a significant point to remember too.

I tell people, just as I have many times on this site, that I don't care what security solution they use - just use one AND keep it and Windows current. And don't be "click happy". 

Contrary to what some may think, I do not promote WD. But I will defend it from those who make false claims about it. It is not junk. Is the best out there? NO! I NEVER said it was. But we don't need the best to remain safe. As I have also said many times on this site, we don't need to drive around in an Abrams Tank to be safe. We need to have a fairly current car, keep it properly updated, and drive defensively.


lexluthermiester said:


> That's a power-user setting and difficult to find, especially in Windows 10. No normal user is going to find it. Those settings need to be in the common controls. Your example is a perfect reason why other AV/AM suites are better for the general public.


Nah! More bullfeathers. It is not a power user setting. It is easily found in Control Panel. No special learning curve needed - as is needed with every 3rd party solution out there! 

WD is like any program - once you get used to it, it is easy. The difference here is WD already uses many of Windows UIs that people are already familiar with.

And the default is 2am when the vast majority of users are asleep. So the vast majority of users will never need to change it. But if they want to, Google makes it easy to figure out how if they don't know by now what Window Control Panel is, or how to type "change maintenance


lexluthermiester said:


> Actually, you are wrong. Windows Defender was included by default starting with Windows Vista.


 And as I said above, that Windows Defender was NOT the anti-malware product, but the anti-spyware only product. But confusion over the names happened because of "misguided" decisions at Microsoft.


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