So years ago when I was in school for software. I was told by several reputable sources close to me that WD is bad and you should use a third party.
Now, over 12 years at this point, it seems that has changed.
Can anyone explain why?
Short answer is - because they had money and the economic incentives to improve it.
Microsoft initially released Microsoft Security Essentials AntiSpyware as a limited, stand-alone anti-spyware software which was quickly renamed to Defender and included later in Windows Vista. This avoided antitrust complaints, as Microsoft started acquiring security companies in 2003, I think. They bought Giant software (anti-spyware) GeCAD (anti-virus) and Sybari (enterprise endpoint security). Maybe others, but that’s what I remember. With every Windows release, the software gained more features (which existed in the stand-alone Microsoft Security Essentials AV) and became a full-fledged anti-virus, but then it was too late to undo what had been done.
They managed to pour resources into their security solutions thanks to enterprise money they were getting from selling Microsoft Forefront solutions (rebranded from Sybari). Today, Defender is part of Microsoft 365 for corporations who want to integrate their Windows environment with the whole suite of Microsoft solutions. In other words, they sell a few features that businesses really need to support the development of the entire product.
The Defender software that comes free with Windows is a simplified version. But one benefit is that it doesn’t really care for scaring users too much, unlike most anti-virus software that wants to make themselves useful so you buy them. Most people are annoyed by this, and would suggest you keep Defender to avoid it. Microsoft doesn’t want you to think that their system is insecure, so they’d rather work with positive messaging and avoid alert overload.
There are some technical reasons, too. Because way too many people use Defender now, since every supported version of Windows now comes with it preinstalled, it tends to have fewer false positives or issues with other software. Developers take it upon themselves to fix incompatibilities, while users of other AV software will be required to fix things on their own.
Back in the day, everyone would use something different and there was no anti-virus software that could help you avoid issues (remember when software used to say “turn off your anti-virus if you have issues”?). Business-wise, for Avast specifically, they went through some mergers and other things along the way. A few years ago they got into the marketing business with Jumpshot and had some issues with their handling of user data. They shut down that business, but a lot of users were obviously unhappy. Some goodwill was lost.
Other huge brands like Norton and McAfee also changed hands. The market changed, and product improvement can’t happen when there’s no money. Microsoft caught up and avoided creating too many issues, so people trust the software a lot more today. Windows itself became a lot more resilient against malware, so a few bits of the tech that AV software used to have isn’t as important today.
I still personally use a different software in some of my systems because I like being able to tune some settings, but most people will actually create problems for themselves if they try to do the same. As such, the standard recommendation is to just keep using Defender.
Edited to add: before adding it to Windows, Microsoft released their AV as a stand-alone software too. It was called OneCare. It went poorly. It also did pretty badly in comparative testing at the time. But things improved a lot since then.
Edited again to add some corrections.
12 years so before windows 10. Windows 10 is when defender became so good you don’t need a third party AV. Defender is all you need. And if you do go looking for trouble an occasional malwarebytes scan. That’s it. 3rd party AV slow down computers way too much. Especially i3 low powered chips.
Nothing has changed. Microsoft’s antivirus (initially Security Essentials, then Windows Defender, and now Microsoft Defender Antivirus) has always been the best.
Still, there has always been a rare group of haters who badmouth the company’s good and bad products alike. I hate to break it to you, but your reputable sources didn’t deserve their reputation.
Before Microsoft Security Essentials, AVs had a bad reputation for being sources of annoying popups. “I found a threat! What should I do with it? Should I clean it?” It is as if they believed we might reply, “No! Please let it destroy my PC!” MSE popularized a shoot-first approach. It quarantines or disables threats before notifying you. You can restore false positives if need be.
As for Avast, it is now the owner of Avast AV, AVG, Avira, Norton, and CCleaner. This company has made highly questionable changes to CCleaner’s privacy policy. The company allows itself to collect your personal info, including your IP address and geolocation, and report it to its servers every ten minutes. They can track you in real time. The policy claims they do this for fraud prevention! It’s funny, because that’s the job of their third-party payment processor, which only collects your IP once and doesn’t keep it!
One of the mayor reasons I think is computer literacy vastly increased compared to 12 years ago, now that a lot more people have access to the internet.
To be more specific, (most) people now understand that to browse safely you just don’t click shady links or download shady software, and then you’re pretty much protected from anything except malicious people specifically targeting you.
Watch out
Buddy I know installed avast. Five days later his car was towed. Street had a winter parking ban but he figured avast would protect him.
It didn’t.
Your genitals have been warned
/S
Windows Defender was good even 12 years ago. ITs really been the go to for about 15 years now.
The problem is that It doesn’t make money for anyone. Avast and the others have been trying to sell you on third party protection and they are losing the battle.
Defender was a completely different product 12 years ago. It has been steadily evolving and improving, and is now a very solid antivirus.
I would take Defender over any free antivirus. All free AVs go through the same cycle, they’re free, they’re really good, everyone uses it, now they have a user base and they need to make money. Free features start moving to paid tiers, and within a few years the free version is crap. Defender doesn’t have anything to upsell you with unless you’re a business. It’s been consistent and reliable for many years, and we have no reason to think that’s going to change any time soon
Windows Defender, in its infancy, was only designed to detect spyware as it was based on another beginning in the Windows XP era and morphing into a fully fledged antivirus with the Windows 8 era.
Avast was caught selling your browser data to a third party. Then they got bought off by Norton. Avoid if you can.
Besides what others have said, one reason we still use another product (ESET) is because of other features like firewall, USB device management, and a reporting dashboard. But we’ve been using ESET before we went all Microsoft 365 so this is likely to change in the near future.
Windows Defender is a built-in solution that is pre-installed on Windows operating systems. There are no extra fees because it is free and comes with Windows. It offers rudimentary malware and antivirus defense. It has features like firewalls, real-time protection, and recurring system inspections. Because it is part of the Windows operating system, its effect on system performance is usually negligible. It offers a simple and intuitive interface that is flawlessly integrated into the Windows Security Center. It is constantly updated with the most recent definitions thanks to updates it receives from Windows Update.
In the end, which you choose between Avast and Windows Defender will rely on your own preferences, needs, and willingness to pay for extra features that third-party antivirus programs offer. Windows Defender is now regarded by many users as a capable and dependable antivirus program for basic security, having made substantial improvements in recent years.
Microsoft initially released Microsoft Security Essentials as a limited, stand-alone anti-spyware software.
No. The limited anti-spyware was the first Windows Defender, which came out during the Windows Vista era and was included with Windows 7. Microsoft Security Essentials came afterward and has always been a full AV. The second, Windows Defender, which came with Windows 8 was a renamed MSE with two extra features.
This is what I needed to know. I do alot of computer work for family and friends. So I wanted to do right by them.
I will get avast off our machines!
Actually, you should run Malwarebytes with Defender. Those 2 together cover most everything and I’ve been running them for 4+ years on 4 different systems and never had a problem or infection (fingers crossed)!
Anecdotes make the best material, so I’ll start with a conversation I had with my old boss, as of a few months back, in where I told him I trusted Windows Defender much more so than the subscription based MSP solution we were providing our clients. He laughed at me.
1 month later, our 2 largest cloents got hit with ransomware. Could Defender have prevented it? No idea.
Did Webroot prevent it? Absolutely not.
Moral of the story? Don’t put your security eggs all in one basket and fucking learn basic network security, like backups, user permissions, use a god damn firewall on a server, and following up on alerts instead of ignoring them. Can’t help.but think the ransomware protection in MS Defense could’ve caught it before multi million dollar costs were involved, but then again, what do I know…
It’s funny that you bring to privacy practices about Avast.
Everything you just said about them applies much more to Microsoft.
Thanks for the feedback! I actually was asking myself the same question and I hear your argument, but I am just curious to know what is the basis of your claim? In other words, in which way can you say that it has always been the best ? Or is the best antivirus ? Honest curious question
That doesn’t really answer the question though, as I think what OP is referring to is that Defender’s reputation has substantially improved, particularly from Windows 10 onwards. The increase in computer literacy doesn’t mean that people are fine without antivirus, as Defender itself is an antivirus.
As an IT professional, I’m seeing general computer literacy going backwards. But changes in how the internet operates has vastly improved security, for example the move to HTML5 from Flash/Java/ActiveX/Silverlight on the internet has drastically improved security along with improved browser sandboxing and regular automatic updates to the browser has minimized many of the risks that we used to see back in the days of IE6/8.