What are your thoughts on Windows Defender?

[IR76]

I want to get into Cybersecurity and I'm curious what people's thoughts are on Windows Defender when it comes to whether you need premium/free anti-malware software rather than just Windows Defender. From what I've seen it appears that Windows Defender is just fine for the majority of dangers if you even run into any as long you have a knowledge of basic online safety and don't visit sketchy websites and click on random stuff of "interest".

 

For people who aren't so tech knowledgeable such as older generations who didn't grow up with computers and still younger generations who don't have basic online safety or don't care I'm not sure if they need something more premium or an additional AV on top of Defender, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that one please.

 

From a business standpoint, I believe they need premium Anti-malware software as well as some kind of intrusion prevention software because they are monitoring multiple computers with a lot of confidential data with some employees exploring the internet more dangerously as it is not their computers and also businesses are more likely to be targeted with phishing emails and other cyber attacks.

 

I would love to hear both sides of my points both for and against and I would love to use this as a good learning experience, thank you very much. I'm not just relying on the forums I study Cybersecurity as one of my subjects and I love every part of it but I am still new. If you also know any websites with good cybersecurity knowledge please mention it. Thank you very much. 

[Levent]

Better than nothing. It’s kind of good for business standpoint as well, as far as the experience I have with its dependable and enforceable through intune quite easily. I got it completely removed on my desktop pc because it’s pretty much only used for playing games and nothing else.

[Agall]

4 minutes ago, IR76 said:

I want to get into Cybersecurity and I'm curious what people's thoughts are on Windows Defender when it comes to whether you need premium/free anti-malware software rather than just Windows Defender. From what I've seen it appears that Windows Defender is just fine for the majority of dangers if you even run into any as long you have a knowledge of basic online safety and don't visit sketchy websites and click on random stuff of "interest".

 

For people who aren't so tech knowledgeable such as older generations who didn't grow up with computers and still younger generations who don't have basic online safety or don't care I'm not sure if they need something more premium or an additional AV on top of Defender, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that one please.

 

From a business standpoint, I believe they need premium Anti-malware software as well as some kind of intrusion prevention software because they are monitoring multiple computers with a lot of confidential data with some employees exploring the internet more dangerously as it is not their computers and also businesses are more likely to be targeted with phishing emails and other cyber attacks.

 

I would love to hear both sides of my points both for and against and I would love to use this as a good learning experience, thank you very much. I'm not just relying on the forums I study Cybersecurity as one of my subjects and I love every part of it but I am still new. If you also know any websites with good cybersecurity knowledge please mention it. Thank you very much. 

Defender has gotten better over time, I'd call it an acceptable compromise for most people and situations. AV on a gaming PC overall is just not a good idea if your goal is maximum performance.

 

A lot of older consumers still want dedicated AV out of habit, most of them aren't going to need it anyways since they'll still fall for scams that don't involve RATs or other payloads. No AV I'm aware of prevents someone from willingly installing remote access software and giving a malicious person control of their device.

 

Personally, I use Defender, abstinence, and my own ability to detect/remove viruses on my machine, haven't ever had to do it on my machine anyways.

[flibberdipper]

Other than it ignoring my exclusion preferences, I have no complaints. It's just annoying that it likes to ignore my exclusions for my network drives where it tampers with my uh... Meme stash.

[IR76]

7 minutes ago, Levent said:

Better than nothing. It’s kind of good for business standpoint as well, as far as the experience I have with its dependable and enforceable through intune quite easily. I got it completely removed on my desktop pc because it’s pretty much only used for playing games and nothing else.

I could never imagine having no AV ha but if you are purely using it for games then I advise the occasional scan from Malwarebytes if you notice anything or just once a month or something. Thank you for your Windows Defender thought. 

[NinJake]

Windows Defender is excellent AV for all users, especially those who aren't in the "tech-savvy" category. Running your PC w/o any form of AV is "do this at your own risk, I understand the consequences of my actions". (And hopefully have segregated admin account from your daily local user account)

[IR76]

8 minutes ago, Agall said:

Defender has gotten better over time, I'd call it an acceptable compromise for most people and situations. AV on a gaming PC overall is just not a good idea if your goal is maximum performance.

 

A lot of older consumers still want dedicated AV out of habit, most of them aren't going to need it anyways since they'll still fall for scams that don't involve RATs or other payloads. No AV I'm aware of prevents someone from willingly installing remote access software and giving a malicious person control of their device.

 

Personally, I use Defender, abstinence, and my own ability to detect/remove viruses on my machine, haven't ever had to do it on my machine anyways.

Yes I agree, I have noticed a significant increase in performance since I removed AVG. Yes, sadly no amount of security will prevent all scams. As for intrusion prevention yes if the user voluntarily installs the software for remote access as a result of something it will still happen but I'm referring to some kind of security that will either remove or limit hackers from sneaking into a system without the need of the victim's involvement. Thank you for your thoughts on Defender. 

[IR76]

14 minutes ago, flibberdipper said:

Other than it ignoring my exclusion preferences, I have no complaints. It's just annoying that it likes to ignore my exclusions for my network drives where it tampers with my uh... Meme stash.

Ah yes, I see that being an issue. Thank you for your Defender thoughts and good luck with your Meme Stash. 

[IR76]

7 minutes ago, NinJake said:

Windows Defender is excellent AV for all users, especially those who aren't in the "tech-savvy" category. Running your PC w/o any form of AV is "do this at your own risk, I understand the consequences of my actions". (And hopefully have segregated admin account from your daily local user account)

Yes, I agree thank you for your thoughts on Defender and yes I plan to ensure the employees don't have access to unnecessary security settings of computers when I start working in IT. 

[Kilrah]

Good enough to not warrant to bother with a 3rd party solution, much less pay for one.

 

+1 on exclusions, in my case it does respect the exclusions in normal use, but my backup software creates VSS snapshots and it currently doesn't respect them within those, so I keep getting warnings that come and disappear as the snapshot is created and gotten rid of once the backup is complete.

That only started a couple of weeks ago though, have little doubt it'll get fixed soon.

[IR76]

23 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Good enough to not warrant to bother with a 3rd party solution, much less pay for one.

 

+1 on exclusions, in my case it does respect the exclusions in normal use, but my backup software creates VSS snapshots and it currently doesn't respect them within those, so I keep getting warnings that come and disappear as the snapshot is created and gotten rid of once the backup is complete.

That only started a couple of weeks ago though, have little doubt it'll get fixed soon.

Thank you for your thoughts on Defender and that appears to be a common problem, I'll keep that in mind for troubleshooting if I run into that sort of issue, thank you very much.