Is Windows Defender enough protection?

Is Windows Defender enough protection for the average internet user? or is a secondary anti-virus program also recommended? I try to be careful when browsing the web i.e. not opening links in emails, not visiting "sketchy" websites, etc., but i'm still concerned Windows Defender may not be enough protection. Are my concerns valid or is Defender on its own adequate protection?

 

Windows Defender used to be a baseline (on which other security solutions are compared), since few builds it became a decent AV for classic home users but it just offer the basics; if you want more advanced capabilities (like behavior blockers, anti-ransomware, web protection, etc...), a 3rd party product is needed.

 

Windows Defender has come a long way, its detection rates has improved a lot. It cannot detect PUPs (Potentially Unwanted Programs) that are bundled with some setup installers, you know like toolbars and system optimizers, so to enable that kind of detection, see this tweak:

• Enable PUP (Potentially Unwanted Programs) Detection in Windows Defender

Now, performance wise, it is one of the heaviest AVs I have used. I can notice an immediate drag on my system when using it. Part of that is because it still has a long standing bug (don't know if that's by design) where it keeps scanning the same files/folders every time you access them causing a slow down.

Take for example my Software folder which contains a lot of folders within that main Software folder and each of those sub-folders has a unique icon that I set to make them stand out, now if I have Windows Defender enabled, those icons would load in slow motion, one by one, despite me having a dual 2TB 960 Pro RAID 0 setup and a fast CPU. The problem is, Windows Defenders rescans those files/folders upon each access causing this slow down. Other AVs like ESET's NOD32 Antivirus for example have something called Whitelisting where they will not rescan the same file twice unless that files hashes has changed, that's why they're so light in the system compared to Windows Defender.

The reason I choose ESET's NOD32 Antivirus is not only because it is the lightest AV out there, but it has great detection rates, PUP detections as well, and an HTTP scanner to stop any bad connections/downloads so that's another layer of security. In addition to their cloud based LiveGrid and behavioral blocker which blocks malicious file activities even if they are still not added to the virus signature database based on certain algorithm and detection methods by the Antivirus to detect what might be similar to a virus activity.

To sum it up, is Windows Defender bad? not at all right now especially if you are the kind of user who doesn't wanna pay. But if you value your computer's performance and want the extra protection, then go for NOD32 Antivirus. If you don't wanna pay, there is still better choice which is Avast Free Antivirus if you don't mind a few ad pops every now and then.

Check the most recent AV Comparatives AV Performance Tests (lower means lighter on your system)



Note: Personally though, would I trust Microsoft to protect me? NEVER!

 

I thought you were using F-Secure now?

 

I was testing it for a while, it was light, then I was installing some apps like the Adobe CS Suite 2018 and the installer would hang at 99% and never finish. Then I disabled F-Secure and the installer finished right away. I don't like it when an AV comes in the way of how I use my PC in any shape or form so I got a refund and went back to my trusted NOD32 as always.

Every time I try a new AV, it looks good at first, the detection rates are good, it may be light, but then I start having issues either this app won't open or update or that won't work. What people don't realize is, an AV not only should protect you as most AVs now do a decent job at detecting viruses but it should also not come in your way or have any adverse effects on your machine or give you tons of False Positives. ESET's NOD32 is probably one of the only AVs with 0 False Positives.

 

Guess what WD, ZAM and MBAM got here. WD actually flagged Spectre PoC exe as Spectre.A and quarantined it. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wds...edia-description?Name=Exploit:Win32/Spectre.A

 

WD won't protect you against anything Microsoft does, and that's the main problem for me. WD would take the place of something useful, wider protections, so taken from that point of view, WD is not a good choice.

Most of the blocking and detection comes from prevention against things coming into your system, and the browser plugins I use are really the front line winners, they stop anything from coming in for the AV to detect.

I don't recommend any particular AV, you need to find what works for your usage pattern. Many installers will recommend disabling AV before installation - it is to "laugh", can you imagine some poor sap seeing that dialog come up and saying, hey I guess I should disable my installation protection before I install...

But I do suggest a bunch of extensions and add-on's, different for different browsers, malware site blockers like uBlock Origin, SafeScript / noScript, Privacy Badger, various mining blockers - although ublock / safescript are adding coin miners to block, I added a few K manually, and of course full on Ad Blockers - sorry ad revenue guys there's just too much malware tagging along with ad's these days, Video AdBlocker for Youtube, Adsense blocking, and lots more... you need to try things to get to know the interfaces and decide how much interaction you want to have - SafeScript is more intuitive than NoScript, but both are powerful and very useful.