Whoa to you oh earth and sea for the Microsoft sends the Defender with wrath.. Let them with understanding reckon the number of the Defender ... For it is a human number and it's number is 6 6 6

OctopussI heard claims that Defender is performance hungry or something. No idea if it's true.

You never used McAfee or Symantec/Norton before, haven't you?

TheGuruStudIt doesn't work at all unless you like false positives and restoring your files.

I immediately disable this pile of crap after install. Have you noticed that microtards no longer let you take control of reg keys to fully disable it? Scumbags.

Yes, it's one of the major beefs I have with Win10: I don't need a resident AV, but if I disable mine, Win10 activates Windows Defender :(

Prima.VeraYou never used McAfee or Symantec/Norton before, haven't you?

They weren't nicknamed Snortons and McStuffie for no reason

OctopussI heard claims that Defender is performance hungry or something. No idea if it's true.

Actually it's the opposite... Defender barely uses any ressources. That's why it scored 6/6 in performance by AVTEST. Actually it scored 6/6 in every test.

lasActually it's the opposite... Defender barely uses any ressources. That's why it scored 6/6 in performance by AVTEST. Actually it scored 6/6 in every test.

MS's own products have always been leaner than competition. MS simply uses undocumented APIs and starts up parts of said products as standalone services, so for example, when you fired up IE and look at task manager, the memory consumption barely went up. So I kinda stopped using that a criterion when comparing.

bugMS's own products have always been leaner than competition. MS simply uses undocumented APIs and starts up parts of said products as standalone services, so for example, when you fired up IE and look at task manager, the memory consumption barely went up. So I kinda stopped using that a criterion when comparing.

I would think that Microsoft knows how to protect their own OS the best way possible - 3rd party AV often injects all kind of crap.

lasI would think that Microsoft knows how to protect their own OS the best way possible

You's think, but it's not always the case: arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/11/inside-minwin-the-windows-7-kernel-slims-down/

las- 3rd party AV often injects all kind of crap.

Fair enough. If you don't install the "custom" route, you end up with all sorts of extras and messed up settings. :(

I used to use ESET, but with all features, it seemed to be slowing the system down a little bit. But then again, advanced heuristics and other protection measure don't come for free. I liked it, but am currently tight on money, so knowing that Defender is good enough is nice.

bugYou'd think, but it's not always the case: arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/11/inside-minwin-the-windows-7-kernel-slims-down/

I'd like to see you try and unravel a thirty-year-old operating system while still trying to maintain backward compatibility and not break stuff (at least, not too badly) in the process while at the same time correcting all of the mistakes of the past. It's not an easy process. Thirty years of spaghetti code, that's what Windows is and it's going to probably take just as long to unravel it.

trparkyI'd like to see you try and unravel a thirty-year-old operating system while still trying to maintain backward compatibility and not break stuff (at least, not too badly) in the process while at the same time correcting all of the mistakes of the past.

Linux is almost 30 and a prime example of doing just that ;)
macOS is almost 20 (older if you count its BSD roots) and has also been less trouble than that.

bugLinux is almost 30 and a prime example of doing just that

Yes, but there's a big difference between Linux and Windows. It's fairly common knowledge that APIs change with every new Linux kernel version; the APIs are constantly in flux, always changing, always getting refactored. When drivers (like AMD and nVidia) depend upon specific APIs to be there and then all of a sudden a new version of the Linux kernel comes out and those APIs have changed, those drivers are often left in a broke state. It's also been known that if you complain about this kind of stuff happening, the kernel maintainers will then tell you that you should merge your stuff into the mainline kernel code and if things change they'll fix your code for you. Which, at least at face value, that sounds good but if you're a for-profit company you might not want your crown jewels to be on display for all the world to find out what is in your "secret sauce".

The API changes of the Linux kernel are even worse for drivers that are binary blob only modules like many Broadcom drivers. If you look at such open source projects like TomatoUSB, OpenWRT, etc. you'll notice that many of those projects are based upon positively ancient versions of the Linux kernel with security fixes often patched in and otherwise merged in all the while hoping that those fixes don't break the Broadcom binary blob drivers that many home routers use to power their more proprietary internal devices such as WiFi, Ethernet switch, etc.

It's also why updating Android devices is such a royal pain in the ass as well, many of the drivers that power the more proprietary pieces of the hardware like the Snapdragon, the cellular baseband chip, etc. are often found as binary blob only modules. If you decide to just willy nilly update the kernel you'll often find that everything just breaks in a very horrible way.

Microsoft doesn't change stuff like that, they have prided themselves on the idea that if you make a program or drivers for Windows 7 it'll (at least with a 95% chance) work on Windows 10 with relatively no issues. Sure, you might need to go in and change stuff and tweak a few things but that's about it; it'll work for the most part. Unfortunately, that backward compatibility has become a double-edged sword. On one side it helps maintain a very structured and dependable software, driver, and hardware ecosystem that's unmatched by any other OS on the market. But on the other side it makes for maintaining it to be a royal pain in the ass.

trparkyI'd like to see you try and unravel a thirty-year-old operating system while still trying to maintain backward compatibility and not break stuff (at least, not too badly) in the process while at the same time correcting all of the mistakes of the past. It's not an easy process. Thirty years of spaghetti code, that's what Windows is and it's going to probably take just as long to unravel it.

trparkyYes, but there's a big difference between Linux and Windows.

You asked me to show you something different. I did.

bugYou asked me to show you something different. I did.

And I explained a lot about the differences between how Linux does things and how Windows does things in my previous post.

trparkyAnd I explained a lot about the differences between how Linux does things and how Windows does things in my previous post.

Which is both nice and irrelevant wrt your original question :D

If you need more the WD you're doing it wrong

lasActually it's the opposite... Defender barely uses any ressources. That's why it scored 6/6 in performance by AVTEST. Actually it scored 6/6 in every test.

Yes, that is very commendable ... but unlike many others, they haven't been doing that consistently. Doesn't take anything away from what they did the last 3 months but when the Tigers (36 wins) bet the Yankess (81 wins), no one pencils in the Tigers to take the World Series. Just to be clear, Defender didn't "beat everybody" .. they scored the same disinfection rate as several other vendors. And this is the 1st time they had consecutive months w/ 6/6/6 ratings. Only have to go back to April their previous best (5.5)

lasI would think that Microsoft knows how to protect their own OS the best way possible - 3rd party AV often injects all kind of crap.

I have seen pop ups with offers but never a "guerilla install" on the better products. The biggest problem with 3rd party AVs is once they gain some level of industry dominance, their "copy protection paranoia" increases the cost of ownership. We stopped using BitDefender and switched to Kaspersky some years back; I could no longer download once and install on 10 boxes, i had to sit at every box and download locally to each machine.

Another negative aspect of the 3rd party option is that they can be as much as twice as costly to renew that to buy as a new customer. So say for a family of 5 users .... Dad buys in 2017 for 3 years ($7.50 per seat per year) and them Mom buys in 2020.

For me, aside from a 100% detection rate in monthly tests over 2 years, it's the added value that the 3rd party options provide.

Many are listed in preceding post but for example, have the option to ...

... set definition update frequency (Defender last updated 4 days ago)
... Postpone scans when gaming or high CPU / file usage negating and system performance impacts

After all these years of foisting itself as a truly "adequate" solution, in the last 3 months Defender has become what it should have been from the getgo. As long as they can maintain this level of performance... and reduce the false positives while maintaining performance above the industry average, it will remain a viable option. That being said, it does not provide equivalent value to 3rd party options which provide additional features and benefits. Of course the value to any individual will depoend on whether those extra features have any value ...

-Do you want scans paused while gaming or PC / storage subsystems are under heavy usage or battery level is low on the lappie ?
-Does any of the mail / web based tracking and protections provide any value ?
-Does the application software vulnerability and update tracking w/ auto update options provide any value ?
-Does the free cloud storage for backups provide any value ?

Like anything else, it's wise to investigate the value of available alternatives .... free is not always the best value when risk and time is involved. What makes the most sense will depend on each individual situation. The only wrong choice is not fully evaluating your options.