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Hi I need a free anti-virus that works on chromebook Andriod and windows 11 I am a content creator of a political podcast so it need a fire wall is there any out our is that to much to ask.

Sent from Mail for Windows Hi everyone, I could really use some help here. Not sure if this is a possible false alarm or anything but I would rather be safe than sorry, plus this could help the next person if they have a similar problem. I left my laptop on while I was out for about an hour because I was in the middle of something. Came back and I had an alert by my antivirus (Kaspersky), that I had a Trojan (Script). It had the option to remove the threat, and I had clicked to remove it, but it didn't work. So I attempted to shut down my PC but it was not allowing me to shut down when clicking to shut down. I opened the system tray in the bottom right to see if I could open my antivirus again and noticed that the windows security icon was red, and when I went to click on it, got an error message. I don't remember exactly what it said, but it was along the lines of "you may not have permission to open this". I also attempted to open some photos but nothing would open. So I force shut down my laptop by holding the power button, and when I turned it back on I had the same issue, Kaspersky popped up straight away, nothing was working again, but this time the threat removal worked. Kaspersky then did some system repair process to revert anything it thought the virus/malware may have damaged. I restarted the PC and everything seemed normal. Ran another virus scan, and luckily, no threats. I also then downloaded Malwarebytes and got the free trial and scanned, no threats detected there either. I then investigated where I may have gotten this virus or malware from, as I am very careful with the websites I visit, and programs I download. I had not remembered downloading a program for a very long time so something seemed off. I checked the quarantine centre in Kaspersky and opened where the file was located. It was located in a Google Chrome extension folder. The file had obviously been removed but the folder it was in was still accessible. I had not downloaded an extension for a long time. The only ones I had were an Adblocker, the same one I have used for years, and Kaspersky Protection extension for Chrome. I went and opened extensions on Chrome, and to my suprise there was a new one, that I have never used before or seen. It was also disabled. The extension was 'UltraSurf Security, Privacy & Unblock VPN'. I do not remember ever installing this. I deleted the extension, and sure enough, the folder the threat was located in was gone. Now I am unsure if this was some sort of false alarm from Kaspersky, or a genuine threat. It seems to have been removed. Should I be worried, is there any more steps I should take? Does anyone know if this extension being malicious? Sorry for the essay, I am just worried, and would like to know if I should do anything else to ensure my system is safe to use. Thanks so much in advance!

Hi, My sub for Norton is coming up for renewal, and I know by just typing that some folk are now thinking 'why are you using Norton'? Personal preference it just worked for me without tanking performance too much. However the latest version will not allow you to use the product without giving them your credit card details for auto renewal, and while you can then cancel this its not the kind of game I want to play. So I’m looking for something else. I haven’t used Windows defender and have no idea if its reliable, reasonable or prone to false positives – or worse not picking stuff up. I’m guessing its OK, but no more. Some friends use Kaspersky and say its a bit of a thug and rather bloated. Ive tried Bit Defender in the past but didn't like the experience and the couple of times I had to contact their help desk they were useless. The only other I tried many years ago was AVG and I gave up on that after 3 days as it just did not work. I’m not that technical so I’d like something I can install and forget which allows me to turn off a couple of games insatiable need to phone home all the time. So suggestions pls? Thanks in advance.

Microsoft Defender is right now using over 11 gigabytes of RAM (I have 16). It is unfortunately beating Chrome and Firefox put together. Oh and CPU usage is around 30%. I tried turning off every setting under "Virus & threat protection settings". I tried adding Defender's own files, and MsMpEng.exe, to the exclusions. I added DisableAntiSpyware to the registry under Windows Defender, tried setting it to 0 and 1. Nothing is helping, the RAM usage is literally climbing through the roof, to the point where Firefox starts crashing. Is my only solution to use a different antivirus, thereby disabling defender? How can I figure out what is causing it to shoot up? I'm running on Win10 Pro 20H2.

Hi, in one of our computers the C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Scans folder consists of a bunch of mpcache files that add upto around 10gb. I would like to delete them as it is consuming too much space. Tried deleting them manually but I get the error saying Windows Defender Service is using this file and it cannot be deleted. I noticed that even if I turn off Windows Defender from settings, it doesn't allow the files to be deleted. Also noticed that the Defender service cannot be stopped in the services Window as the options are greyed out. Some insight to get this done would be really helpful. Thanks.

I've been using Avast Premium Security for years and the experience has always been positive (except for the annoying pop-up ads), but as my current subscription is about to expire I'm left wondering if it is still necessary in this day and age when I keep hearing about how good Windows Defender is. Besides, aren't malware and ransomware the biggest threats these days more so than viruses? Wouldn't be better to invest in a solid firewall and/or malware removal tools (and common sense, of course) instead of relying on these services and the speed with which they update their databases? Avast is offering a pretty awesome discount to renew my subscription, but would that be the right move? Would invest in something like Malwarebytes be a better option instead?

Hi all, I'm here for a little help. Earlier today I clicked on a link to a website, when my anti-virus (Kaspersky) which I have the paid internet security version of, detected and blocked a few what seems to be download attempts. Three of the "events" say download denied, and one says "Detected legitimate software that can be used by intruders to damage your computer or personal data". My question is, why was one of them just detected, and why is it that since this I have run a Kaspersky scan and a Malwarebytes scan and it has not come up. (Hopefully the above image helps) If it has just been "detected" does that mean it was also removed? If not how can I remove it? Should I still be worried about having a serious malware infection? I'm considering fresh installing windows including removing all my data if needed as I use this PC a lot. Please any help and peace of mind will be much appreciated.

if a 3 user license of eset is purchased then does all 3 get activated on the same day as the first used license? (is most other apps softwares it is as such but dont know in eset.) Also please suggest a good antivirus/internet security program for personal use.

I am currently infected by a virus (maybe) and maybe a RAT. I need to know what is the best one, I think Kaspersky or Bitdefender, if not, let me know. I keep getting Threats found when I'm doing completely nothing.

Can someone please recommend me the best antivirus software or at least some decent ones? or windows defender antivirus is really enough for windows 10?

I recently uninstalled Avira Antivirus, restarted my laptop and then windows security notified me that Windows Defender and Avira are disabled. I went to Windows security to enable Windows defender but Windows threat a nd security tab was missing. I googled to find a solution for this. Everyone mentioned to change the group policy under administrative templates so I headed over there. And I couldn't find that too . I don't know if I have changed any policies. The laptop I use my own and does not belong to any organization or school. Do respond if you guys have a fix

So I remember when Blackberry used to be THE phone to have, but nowadays I know them as a software company/security company. Now they have "AI Antivirus software" I don't use antiviruses (anyone who doesn't do shady stuff online shouldn't need one [waste of processing power AND MONEY]) but I personally doubt that "AI Antiviruses" will not affect gaming like how Blackberry is advertising this software. Or does it.....? Any way to test this software to see if this is a real thing and doesn't affect gaming? I would test it but I don't know the first thing about how to test antiviruses :/ Also wondering how a phone juggernaut has been reduced to disgusting antivirus bloatware.... the software is called CYLANCE, quick google search of this term brings you to the official site to buy this software.

This is probably gonna sound dumb but I'm gonna ask anyway. Is it okay to run 2 antivirus at the same time? I have Avast and Malwarebytes, I've read somewhere that it is not okay to run 2 at the same time because they will conflict or something but I also read somewhere else that it is okay because Avast will be mainly for virus in the system or stuff while Malwarebytes will be incoming malware ( I assume like when I'm browsing and downloading stuff it will detect malware which I already see it doing, not sure if Avast also does it). Anyways long story short, is it okay to run both of them at the same time?

Hey guys, Imma be honest my parents never really bought me pc games growing up, and now my financial situation ain't stable so I can't buy them either...I've lived off igg-games and piratebay my whole life, So I'm certain there has to be like a shit ton of viruses and super unnecessary files and random malware running in the background....and prolly save files from games I used to play years ago, What's the best way to like FULLY clean everything without losing some of my other online games like league of legends and genshin impact cz they are pretty big...I never tried backing up online games idk how to works, plus if I put them on a external drive or something won't it also get corrupted with viruses(idk how malware works ngl my external has 3TB of pirated games that I horded my whole life bcz of my 400kbps download speed so it probably already has viruses on it).

So i have Server that i primarely use to host my Minecraft server and some wierd stuff have been happening(folder vanishing, anti virus broken). It runs Windows server 2019 Standart and the antivirus i use is Avira Free.

Hello, So i've been having this issue since 2 days ago, but whenever i try to play any games my laptop would randomly start stuttering and i drop to like 5-10 fps randomly every 5 minutes, i kept task manager open while this was happening and my cpu and ram usage were both at 30% so i dont know what's the problem, it happened to me while playing genshin impact which is a demanding game for my pc specs which are i7-6500U, 8gb of ram and a radeon R5 M330, so i thought the specs where the problem first and since summer just started maybe my laptop is overheating and can't handle genshin anymore, but today i tried playing Hades which is far less demanding and it kept happening aswell every 5 minutes. Any ideas would be appreciated, Thanks! also any tips on free antivirus softwares? that could also be the problem

I'm looking at replacing my Norton 360 that I currently have that Norton tried to auto subscribe to me at £95 for 1 year and when I went to cancel it they offered me for £40 for 1 year but that is more than I hsve seen in magazines that I read the two have have interested me the most is Norton 360 Deluxe + Utilities Ultimate 2023 [5-D, 1-YR] £17 https://store.computeractive.co.uk/p44029-norton_360_deluxe__utilities_ultimate_2023_5-d_1-yr This would essentially replace the subscription I currently have but add the Norton Utilities that is suppose to be good. Avast Ultimate 2023 [10-Device, 2-YR] £25 - Antivirus, Avast SecureLine VPN, AntiTrack, and Avast Security Ultimate for Andriod & IOS https://store.computeractive.co.uk/p37015-avast_ultimate_2023_10-device_2-yr It gives a lot more for your money but I don't know as much about Avast as I've been using Norton for 15+ years Do anybody know if there is much difference between Norton and Avast?

Connected to some new computer with windows 11 and Norton, trying to install a non notorius software for work, the exe download was blocked and deleted, had no option to restore that I could find, was able to allow it, but had to redownload it. Upon installation some files are blocked, and no action is available to allow this, the install fails, are antivirus heading towards owning authority over what you can and can't install on your PC, and we have to pay a subscription for that?

Hey, so I've been thinking about doing this for a while now...I would like to craft a (completely free) plan in which windows' built-in security is disabled and on-demand scanners (for malware and virus, could be separate) are downloaded and used, well, on demand (instead of ran in the background, consuming ram doing virtually nothing (since I don't DL random things and visit pretty much the same 20 websites - all https and quite trustworthy; also never accept weird files, attachments, etc.) [haven't had any kind of virus, malware in decades]. So, what FREE on-demand scanners would you guys propose? Protection to all kinds of threats would be nice. I just wanna be able to run from the context menu or by starting (possibly a small) scanner for a given file I've (let's say) just downloaded and find suspicious. I don't want any background scanners. Run it, scan, close completely. Thanks in advance! P.S. I'm aware free software ain't gonna protect as well as premium but hey, it's still sth.

Hello LTT community, I am trying to find the best antivirus software that has all the features that Total Av has I am thinking about buying the total AV premium license but I thought it would be smart to check with you guys first becuase you will probably have the right answer on if I should buy it or if not what other premium anti virus are out there.

So everytime i launch or quit pubg, i see that the Anti Malware Service executable services starts running, and it maxes out the cpu - Making the game extremely slow to launch.... Ive tried to add the folder and the exec files to the exeption list, it doesnt seem to help... Do you guys have any other suggestions?

Edit: As of Windows 10 version 2004, Windows Defender has been renamed as Microsoft Defender Antivirus. You probably don't need to buy another third party antivirus program to keep your PC more secure with the advent of Windows Defender accompanied by its improvements in version 1709 aka Fall Creators Update. But later in this thread, I will show some situations on why you might want to use a third party antivirus program especially when managing remotely computers. @Ryan_Vickers, @wkdpaul, @leadeater tell me if what I said is wrong. You may have seen YouTube videos of Windows Defender trailing behind when it comes to detection on execution despite scoring high on AV-Comparatives and other independent testing sites. The reason for this is they test it on default settings, which if you ask me is not really as good as the default settings of third party antivirus programs because some of the advanced settings of Windows Defender are turned off which is a bummer. To make Windows Defender more secure, you need the following: a PC running the latest stable release of Windows 10 Pro 1909 or later. The reason why you need to use the Pro version is because of Group Policy which most of these advanced settings are buried deep and unavailable to Windows 10 Home users. Windows Updates enabled Hit Start>type "gpedit">hit Enter Go to Computer Configuration ➡ Administrative Tools ➡ Windows Components ➡ Windows Defender Antivirus Within these settings, we will focus on the following protection components: MAPS (aka Microsoft Active Protection Service) "Block at First Sight" Automatic Sample Submission MpEngine Configure Cloud Protection Levels Extending cloud check Windows Defender Exploit Guard Attack Surface Reduction Controlled Folder Access Network Protection Take note several features such as Windows Defender Exploit Guard is a component of their paid, enterprise grade protection "Defender ATP" which is a component of a Windows 10 E5 subscription. "Block at First Sight" & MAPS: Microsoft Active Protection Service First, enable the Block At First Sight. Open that property and click Enable. What it will do is having a file scanned in real time by their local and cloud based algorithms to determine if a file is malicious or not. In Microsoft's documentation, if the local detection algorithms can't immediately make a verdict, it will use a cloud service to do additional checks. To do this, open the "Join Microsoft MAPS" properties and enable "Advanced MAPS". Now, as shown in the screenshot Advanced MAPS will collect even more data such as ncluding the location of the software, file names, how the software operates, and how it has impacted your computer. If you think this is a little bit invasive, you can dial it down to Basic MAPS. MpEngine Next property to configure is the MpEngine which I believe is their actual detection process in Task Manager. Open "configure extended cloud check" and specify how much delay it will take before it executes. What it does is that executable files (clean or malicious) will not be executed unless it is scanned in the cloud. Obviously, a longer waiting time up to a minute could mean much better detection. How cloud protection works is best described by Microsoft's infographic below. This method is used by almost all antivirus vendors. Basically, local and cloud detection algorithms locally try to determine if a new, unknown file is malicious or not. Then it will do a a of +1s and -1s if it exhibits behavior characteristic of malware, should it reach the threshold, the AV will delete/quarantine the file and send it for further analysis. However, for the super paranoid or if there's a home PC and you don't want something malicious to execute because mom was tricked by a social engineering ad pretending to be Covid-19 charity, you need to Set the Cloud Protection Level. If you want, you can select "Zero Tolerance blocking level", which is basically whitelisting: any program that wasn't flagged by Microsoft to be safe will not execute. This is also useful for small businesses or anyone in a high risk working environment, but this setting will lead to many false positives. Or if you don't want that much annoyance, you can set the cloud blocking level to just High or High+. Attack Surface Reduction Next property to enable is Attack Surface Reduction. In Windows 10 Pro, only a subset of properties of ASR is available via Group Policy. The rest of the protection modules are only available to Windows 10 E5 (WDATP) or Intune. What ASR does is prevent the execution of malicious programs by blocking well known attack vectors such as creating child processes, obfuscated macro, or even malware from USB flash drives. To enable ASR rules, go to Windows Defender Exploit Guard ➡ Attack Surface Reduction ➡ Configure Attack Surface Reduction Rules ➡Enabled. From there, you have to unfortunately have to type GUID command and setting the value to 1 as if it's the registry editor. For WDATP and Intune, all it takes are a few mouse clicks to enable ASR, Rule name GUID File & folder exclusions Minimum OS supported Block executable content from email client and webmail BE9BA2D9-53EA-4CDC-84E5-9B1EEEE46550 Supported Windows 10, version 1709 (RS3, build 16299) or greater Block all Office applications from creating child processes D4F940AB-401B-4EFC-AADC-AD5F3C50688A Supported Windows 10, version 1709 (RS3, build 16299) or greater Block Office applications from creating executable content 3B576869-A4EC-4529-8536-B80A7769E899 Supported Windows 10, version 1709 (RS3, build 16299) or greater Block Office applications from injecting code into other processes 75668C1F-73B5-4CF0-BB93-3ECF5CB7CC84 Supported Windows 10, version 1709 (RS3, build 16299) or greater Block JavaScript or VBScript from launching downloaded executable content D3E037E1-3EB8-44C8-A917-57927947596D Not supported Windows 10, version 1709 (RS3, build 16299) or greater Block execution of potentially obfuscated scripts 5BEB7EFE-FD9A-4556-801D-275E5FFC04CC Supported Windows 10, version 1709 (RS3, build 16299) or greater Block Win32 API calls from Office macros 92E97FA1-2EDF-4476-BDD6-9DD0B4DDDC7B Supported Windows 10, version 1709 (RS3, build 16299) or greater Block executable files from running unless they meet a prevalence, age, or trusted list criterion 01443614-cd74-433a-b99e-2ecdc07bfc25 Supported Windows 10, version 1709 (RS3, build 16299) or greater Use advanced protection against ransomware c1db55ab-c21a-4637-bb3f-a12568109d35 Supported Windows 10, version 1709 (RS3, build 16299) or greater Block credential stealing from the Windows local security authority subsystem (lsass.exe) 9e6c4e1f-7d60-472f-ba1a-a39ef669e4b2 Supported Windows 10, version 1709 (RS3, build 16299) or greater Block process creations originating from PSExec and WMI commands d1e49aac-8f56-4280-b9ba-993a6d77406c Supported Windows 10, version 1709 (RS3, build 16299) or greater Block untrusted and unsigned processes that run from USB b2b3f03d-6a65-4f7b-a9c7-1c7ef74a9ba4 Supported Windows 10, version 1709 (RS3, build 16299) or greater Block Office communication application from creating child processes 26190899-1602-49e8-8b27-eb1d0a1ce869 Supported Windows 10, version 1709 (RS3, build 16299) or greater Block Adobe Reader from creating child processes 7674ba52-37eb-4a4f-a9a1-f0f9a1619a2c Supported Windows 10, version 1709 (RS3, build 16299) or greater Block persistence through WMI event subscription e6db77e5-3df2-4cf1-b95a-636979351e5b Not supported Windows 10, version 1903 (build 18362) or greater The rest of the documentation can be found in Microsoft's website. To demonstrate how ASR works, after enabling those features, it detected BitTorrent.exe as doing something similar to credential stealing. This might be a false positive but it might be shady too considering it's a piracy tool that served ads. However, I am not sure if the ASR rules also protect other browsers other than Edge. ASR rules also don't apply when a third party antivirus is installed. I know that old Edge sucks because of their old rendering engine, you may opt to use the Chromium based Edge. Just don't forget to switch the search engine to Google because Bing sucks. Protection against Potentially Unwanted Applications (PUAs) Edit: As of June 15, 2020, Microsoft Defender AV has moved the option for PUA protection into the Windows Security GUI. Start → type "Windows Security" → App & browser control → Reputation Based Protection → Turn On "Potentially unwanted app blocking" It should be noted that this feature constantly receives information from Microsoft's cloud protection service so this will only work properly if Real-Time Protection and Cloud-delivered Protection are enabled. By the time of writing, Windows 10 does have PUA detection but it's disabled by default. To enable it, hit Start ➡ type PowerShell ➡ Run As Administrator. Then copy paste the following value and hit okay. Set-MpPreference -PUAProtection enable Or you can also enable it in Group Policy: If you are curious as to what this module detects, it detects and blocks torrenting programs especially the popular ones. And yes, I have stopped using Bittorrent. Protection Against Ransomware: ASR and Controlled Folder Access You may have remembered that one of the ASR rules is advanced protection against ransomware by doing additional checks if an application is performing behavior/s characteristic of ransomware such as file enumeration and unwanted encryption. To better protect your PC against it, you need to enable Controlled Folder Access. This time, you don't need Group Policy as this option is also available to Windows 10 Home. Go to the bottom right corner of your taskbar and look for the shield icon. Double click it ➡ Virus & threat protection ➡ under Ransomware protection, click "Manage Ransomware Protection" ➡ turn on Controlled Folder Access. What it does is it prevents unknown applications to overwrite or access the protected folders. However, this can also lead to false positives and you have to manually whitelist programs. The reason why it is grayed out is because I enabled it in Group Policy as well. There's even an option to restore files should a ransomware succeed to encrypt some files but this feature is only available to Microsoft accounts who subscribed to Office 365. Edit: Securing web access regardless of the browser of choice with Network Protection At first I thought that Windows Defender's Smart Screen filter only applies to Office products and Microsoft Edge but it turns out I was wrong, as there's a hidden feature within Group Policy that prevents applications from accessing dangerous URLs, IP addresses, and phishing sites. With this feature, if I click on a link from a phishing email and I was using Chrome or Firefox, it blocks outbound HTTP(s) traffic from reaching your PC and Windows Defender will show a warning like the screenshot below. While that is good, I do not like how the notification appears as it is so generic looking without proper context as to what it has blocked unlike Smart Screen alerts in Microsoft Edge which is an explicit red warning warning. If Microsoft is reading this, please add more context to these alerts like adding what was blocked or that Smart Screen has deemed the URL or IP address to be malicious with a high certainty. It would be nice if Smart Screen alerts correspond to one's cloud blocking level. Let's say I have enabled "Zero Tolerance", this should also mean that Smart Screen including Network Protection should only allow sites that are whitelisted or flagged by Microsoft to be safe. Maybe in Windows 10 November 2020 update it's gonna be there. The screenshot below is how the alert looks like with Google Chrome or any non-Microsoft browser. ⬇ To enable this, go to Group Policy ▶ Computer Configuration ▶ Administrative Templates ▶ Windows Components ▶ Windows Defender Antivirus ▶ Windows Defender Exploit Guard ▶ Network Protection. From there, enable the "Prevent users and apps from accessing dangerous websites" rule and set it to "Block". From then on, even if you use Chrome, Firefox or any browser, you will be protected from threats as long as Microsoft's cloud service called "Intelligent Security Graph" has flagged a file or URL as malicious. Unfortunately, web control such as blocking select categories of websites are only available in the paid WDATP which is not cheap. If you ask me, this might be better than what most antivirus companies are doing with injecting scripts on every browser to determine if a site is malicious as it makes the user more susceptible to cross-site scripting attacks. [here] [here] [here] But the lack of web control out of the box and the upfront price to just have it is probably one of the reasons why many people pay for 3rd party antivirus. Hardening Windows Defender against attacks: Tamper Protection and Core Isolation Tamper Protection is turned on by default which prevents malware and other programs from turning Windows Defender off. Core Isolation protects the Windows kernel by utilizing virtualization. This feature is turned off by default because other programs relying on virtualization such as VMWare will not work. Turn it on only if you don't host virtual machines and you think you're susceptible to targeted attacks. And that is how you make Windows Defender as secure as third party AV programs. If you're enabling the settings above for a small business, don't forget to make your employees use standard accounts to prevent them from tampering those settings. It should be kept in mind that the settings above are only recommended for computing in a high risk environment, you're a small business, your non-tech savvy parents use the home PC and don't want social engineering attacks to succeed, or if you're paranoid about targeted attacks like spear-phishing. However, if you're a gamer it's better to just use the default protection level. Why you might want to use a third party antivirus instead? With all that said, there might be situations you might want to use a third party antivirus solution because: Number one reason why is remote management of computers. Right now, we're using Bitdefender GravityZone because one, I got it with a discount and second, is I can manage protection, patch management, schedule scans remotely. I can even block USB flash drives remotely or just mark it as read only, prevent our employees from accessing sites that they're not supposed to visit like torrenting, porn, or even job search site. Out of the box Windows Defender from Windows 10 Pro simply won't provide me that kind of control. To do that with Microsoft's offerings, I have to shell out more money either an W10 E5 license which quite an overkill for a small business, or subscribe to Intune which costs more. For our small family business with seven computers that I remotely manage, Bitdefender Gravityzone is a better choice when it comes to price. At the time of writing, it cost $260 for a license of 10 computers including 3 file servers. Should I spend the money for Microsoft's Intune, it will cost us $734.16 every year just to protect 7 devices which is more expensive than what I've paid Bitdefender for. While you might say well Intune also protects mobile devices including Android and iOS via MDM, well Bitdefender's higher tier Gravityzone Advance is still cheaper than Intune because it only costs $406 by the time of writing. That's the reason why if you're a small business who: Doesn't want to use Microsoft Edge (Chromium or EdgeHTML) Only uses Windows 10, macOS or Linux and no phone or tablet are being used On a tight budget Would still want web, device and application control Then, a third party endpoint security solution might be a better choice than what Microsoft's paid solutions offer. ⬇ Pricing comparison between Bitdefender Gravityzone vs Microsoft Intune But as I've said previously, if you don't care about those and would just want PCs in a small business to be protected, then the in-house Windows Defender with Advanced Settings is your best choice. Also, many paid antivirus programs have additional features such as parental controls for children, password manager, and VPN. Also, most of the top AV vendors know best if a file is malicious or not and has lower false positives. This is important especially if you're gaming and all of a sudden Windows Defender blocks installation of a Steam game because of enabling ASR or higher cloud blocking. But, some security researchers recommend Windows Defender over other AVs for a couple of reasons: Windows Defender doesn't inject scripts in a browser (similar to a MiTM) to determine if a site is malicious or not unlike most of 3rd party AVs, due to the fact that Windows Defender only protects Microsoft Edge so it's tightly integrated. Unlike third party AVs, Windows Defender is less susceptible to cross site scripting attacks. While most antivirus programs are exploitable because of the fact that it has a deep access to the system including the kernel, by the time of writing only Microsoft took the effort to sandbox the Windows Defender process, thus reducing the chances of being exploited. Take note that the sandbox isn't enabled by default. If one wants to enable the AppContainer sandbox for Windows Defender, open Command Prompt as an Administrator and type: setx /M MP_FORCE_USE_SANDBOX 1 Windows Defender is now catching up to the big boys of the antivirus industry. Unlike it's pathetic detection scores way back years ago.

Hi, sorry I had no idea under which category to post this. Let me explain the problem, yesterday I was running a full scan with my second opinion antimalware Emsisoft Emergency Kit and I guess as I was running that Windows Defender started its periodic scanning that it does periodically...of course. As emsisoft was still scanning, windows sent me a notification saying “Windows periodic scanning complete, one threat was found” (or something like that) I quickly checked out the virus and it was a Trojan in my AppData\Local\Temp folder with the name tmp[numbers]. I quickly removed it and after a couple more minutes Emsisoft returned with no threats found. To make sure that the virus Windows found was gone I ran another full scan with this time Malwarebytes and didn’t get anything bad. (I also scanned rootkits, registry, memory and all that) My question is since 2 scanners were running at the same time, did Windows Defender assume that Emsisoft was a virus? What could’ve happened? I deleted all my Temp files, I reopened Emsisoft EK and saw that a new file was created in my Temp folder which a similar name to what Windows found a virus in, tmp[but this time different numbers] was created in my Temp folder. So maybe this file is just something that belongs to EEK and is created each time the software is run and Windows thought this was a virus as they were scanning at the same time? Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks.

This AVG message keeps popping up basically whenever I try to open a new window in Firefox. I've never seen that site and I have no idea how it keeps poping up even after cleaning everything with CCleaner. How can I get rid of this? I also tried downloading malwarebytes and running scan, but it didn't help. Sorry for the language, forgot to mention. It literally says: "Danger eliminated" "We securely eliminated connection on jackyhillty.net, where we found infection Other:Malware-gen[Tri]." "Test my PC" Thank you edit: apparently its not the only one anymore, I'm desperate

Hi there! I have been using Malwarebytes along with Microsoft Defender for past few years, as a virus protection. But According to the link (https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-windows/) Linus posted earlier with his video Malwarebytes doesn't have a good record with zero day vulnerabilities. So I'm confused fact, why many people recommend Defender with Malwarebytes. Also, Do you guys have any suggestions to this setup? or is it good enough for now? Thank you for your time!