Is Windows Defender Good enough ?

[healthyboy]

For quite a while I have been contemplating buying a subscription for BitDefender, but the more reviews I read, the more it seems that its not that much better than Windows Defender, and most cyber threat assessment websites nowadays give WD very good ratings,

 

Thoughts anyone ?

[S.Hamed23]

5 minutes ago, healthyboy said:

For quite a while I have been contemplating buying a subscription for BitDefender, but the more reviews I read, the more it seems that its not that much better than Windows Defender, and most cyber threat assessment websites nowadays give WD very good ratings,

 

Thoughts anyone ?

good enough to detect keygens and cracked .exe
Not good enough to detect malicious files aka viruses and trojans

[AMD A10-9600P]

From my experience, if you're careful and don't click any dodgy links, then yes Windows Defender is great. It is very comparable to some paid antivirus suites.

 

It's the least intrusive antivirus I've ever used, which is super important to me on my desktop where performance is key for games, and on my laptop where my battery life is key. Norton used to peg my CPU and HDD on my older laptops, ruining the battery life and making them super slow sometimes. Windows Defender meant I could actually use one of those for school for a bit, as it was more responsive and the battery lasted longer.

 

As long as you're not prone to visiting dodgy corners of the web or using questionable software, you'll be fine.

[Oshino Shinobu]

Windows Defender is fine for most people as long as you're careful what you're clicking on, but I'd still recommend using something like Malwarebytes for frequent scheduled scans. 

 

Bitdefender's good. I manage a reskinned version of it at work and it performs just as well as other AV solutions like Symantec, Kaspersky, Sophos, FortiClient etc. That said, I wouldn't personally buy an AV subscription for personal use as Windows Defender and frequent scans with a free AV offering is good enough. For business use it's a bit different, but even then you're looking at centrally managed ones that have more control over policy and how they operate. 

[JP!]

Yes.

 

https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-windows/

 

JP

[Danny Donkey]

Windows Defender is a safe option unless the users of the device actively are clicking on every clickbait popup they see.

 

Spoiler

 

[healthyboy]

Thank you all for the replies, I have a clear pic now.

[VFXGuy]

Not as bad as it is often deemed to be but personally I wouldn't rely on it as my primary antivirus. Too many false positives so I wouldn't know what is actually malicious. The controlled folder access for ransomware protection is quite good though.