How To Close Windows Defender
Tom's Guide Verdict
Windows Defender isn't the absolute best antivirus software, merely information technology'south hands skillful enough to be your main malware defense.
Pros
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Already installed on Windows 8.1 and 10
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Very adept malware protection
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Cons
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Tin can exist hard to schedule scans
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Not many extras
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Some features work only with Microsoft products
With very good defenses confronting malware, a low impact on system operation and a surprising number of accompanying extra features, Microsoft's built-in Windows Defender, aka Windows Defender Antivirus, has almost defenseless up with the best gratuitous antivirus programs by offering excellent automated protection.
Windows Defender specs
Malware protection: Very skilful
System touch on, background: n/a
System impact, scans: Moderate
Windows compatibility: 8/8.1 and x
Email scans: No
File shredder: No
Game/silent mode: Yes
Hardened/secure browser: Aye, for Edge & IE but
Password managing director: No
Operation scanner: No
Ransomware file reversal: Yes
Rescue deejay: No
Scan scheduler: Yes
Back up options: 24/7 phone, e-mail support
URL screener: Yes, for Edge & IE only
Upsell nag factor: Nonexistent
The downsides are that scheduling scans is also hard for many to accomplish, there'southward no protection for web browsers other than Edge or Cyberspace Explorer, and there'south no stand up-lone password manager or a file shredder.
If you require airtight malware protection forth with easy-to-schedule scans, a fair number of extra goodies, lots of customization options and a superlight organization load, become Kaspersky Security Deject Free. If you just desire meliorate defenses than what Defender offers, effort the no-muss-no-fuss Bitdefender Antivirus Gratuitous Edition.
If you're still using Windows 7, then yous need to use third-party antivirus software. Only if you lot're on Windows viii.i or Windows 10 and similar the thought of getting very good complimentary malware protection without lifting a finger, then only stick with Windows Defender.
Read on for the rest of our Windows Defender review.
Windows Defender: What's covered and upgrade options
Windows Defender comes with Windows viii.1 and x and can be disabled only by the installation of a third-political party antivirus program, or, if you're brave, editing the Windows Registry.
What you encounter with Windows Defender is what you get. There are no upgrades available to broaden protection or add features. Just if yous accept into business relationship the entire Windows Security apparatus, Defender comes with a firewall, drive-level encryption (in Windows 10 Pro and upwards), limited parental controls and even a game mode.
On the other hand, information technology nonetheless lacks things that third-party antivirus makers add as enticements, such as a file shredder and VPN access.
Microsoft plans to expand Defender'southward coverage to other platforms. At that place'southward already a beta version of Microsoft Defender for Macs in enterprise deployments, and Microsoft says it is working on Microsoft Defender for Android and Linux.
Hence the official renaming of the enterprise production to "Microsoft Defender." Microsoft tells united states of america the consumer product will continue to be called Windows Defender Antivirus.
Windows Defender: Antivirus protection
Even if you do goose egg to a new Windows 8.1 or 10 computer, Windows Defender is already there protecting your machine. Many users will non fifty-fifty discover that Defender is working until they're subjected to an attack.
Defender compares new files and programs against a database of known malware and watches for signs that an attack is underway, such every bit the encryption of central files.
By default, Microsoft uploads suspect items from your estimator for online analysis, but yous can opt out of this data collection in the Windows Security Eye settings. Several malware-signature updates go out daily to Windows Defender and Microsoft Defender's 500 million users.
Microsoft as well has a bunch of specific defenses. Because Defender runs in an isolated "sandbox," rogue code tin can be executed without affecting the balance of the organisation.
There's now tamper protection to forbid malicious apps from irresolute settings, and Defender stops fileless-malware attacks with a retentiveness-integrity feature that prevents malicious code from being injected into running RAM. It also screens email attachments for malicious code.
Quick scans are a click away from the front end page of the Windows Defender Security Heart, which y'all tin access by clicking the shield icon in the System Tray at the bottom correct of your screen. Full or specialized scans are a click or two beyond that.
When a USB bulldoze is plugged in, Defender scans its contents; you can also browse whatsoever file past correct-clicking on it in the Windows Explorer file director.
The residuum of Microsoft'southward Windows Security Center features run whether or non Defender or another antivirus program is protecting your system, but they're worth mentioning.
Attacks on the arrangement's get-go-up sequence can be stopped by Microsoft'due south Secure Boot feature, and the SmartScreen filter blocks links to untrustworthy websites from Outlook, Edge and Net Explorer (but not 3rd-party browsers like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox).
Microsoft's OneDrive online file repository can hold copies of your cardinal files to exist recovered in instance of an encrypting ransomware assail.
If Windows Defender interrupts a flick or game playing on your PC, the Game Fashion tin can help. While other antivirus programs have integrated game modes, Microsoft's can be accessed in the Gaming office of the main Windows Settings menu.
Windows Defender: Antivirus performance
Over the past two years, Windows Defender has improved to the betoken where information technology now offers malware protection equally good as almost any free or paid antivirus program.
In all 26 monthly rounds of tests conducted in 2018, 2019 and the starting time ii months of 2020 past German language lab AV-Test, Windows Defender detected either 99.9% or 100% of known "widespread" malware every unmarried fourth dimension, and failed to become a perfect 100% only once in 2019. It failed to observe 100% of previously unseen "nix-day" malware a total of half-dozen times.
Those scores put Windows Defender, once the worst joke in antivirus protection, alee of well-known brands similar Avast, AVG, Avira and McAfee, and just behind Bitdefender and Tendency Micro.
Defender withal isn't as good as industry leaders Kaspersky or Norton, which detected all malware in all of AV-Examination'due south 2018, 2019 and (and so far) 2020 evaluations, but information technology'southward finally within shouting distance.
Non all these brands mentioned offering free antivirus software, simply of those who practise, Kaspersky comes out on elevation with perfect scores. Next upward is Bitdefender, which got all the widespread malware in those 2-plus years just missed some cipher-day bugs in three instances.
The other two free products we've reviewed for this round, Avast Free Antivirus and AVG AntiVirus Free, share the same malware-detection engine with each other and were behind Windows Defender. While they detected either 99.9% or 100% of widespread malware most all the time, they missed zero-24-hour interval bugs x times over the 26-calendar month menstruation.
Windows Defender is besides detecting fewer false positives than it used to, at least in AV-Test's evaluations. It registered 21 false alarms in 2018, but only fifteen in 2019. Nonetheless, Kaspersky had only iii false positives over the entire ii years.
Tests by the Austrian lab AV-Comparatives are much more sensitive to false positives, and in those, Windows Defender racked up too many: a total of 74 in four monthly tests from February to May 2019, and 58 from July through October 2019. Kaspersky got goose egg fake positives for the entire year; Bitdefender got four and Avast and AVG xiii each.
Microsoft told u.s. that this was considering its Smart Screen browser-protection characteristic flags any unknown file as potential malware, and that AV-Comparatives chalked up a faux positive every time that happened. For its February-March 2020 tests, AV-Comparatives reportedly turned Smart Screen off, and Defender came away with only 5 false positives.
On the plus side, Windows Defender stopped a respectable average of 99.6% of "real-world" (generally online) malware in AV-Comparatives' February-May 2019 tests, 99.3% from July to October 2019, and 99.7% in February-March 2020.
Kaspersky'south results were mixed, with 100% in the first and third set of tests, simply only 99.one% in the second. Bitdefender got 99.9%, 99.7% and 99.5%, respectively, and Avast and AVG brought upwardly the rear with 99.2%, 99.3% and 99.vii% each.
Finally, Windows Defender scored a 99% overall score in London-based SE Labs' July-September 2019 tests, and 98% in the October-Dec 2019 rounds, edging just by Avast and AVG in the first round and tying them in the second. In January-March 2020, Defender got a 99% score again.
All 3 were behind Kaspersky, which scored perfect 100% detection rates both times; every bit for Bitdefender, it wasn't tested.
Notably, Defender got zip false positives in all three of those nigh contempo SE Labs rounds, a perfect streak that goes back to at least Jan 2018.
Windows Defender: Security and privacy features
Microsoft'southward security offerings are baked into Windows 10 and available to users of other antivirus programs. Windows has a built-in firewall, which doesn't screen outbound traffic by default as many 3rd-party firewalls do, merely you lot tin set the Windows firewall to do that by adding rules.
It'southward not a fully hardened browser for banking or buying online, but Border's SmartScreen filter blocks known malicious websites. There is a password manager baked into Microsoft Edge, just as there is for Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome, only information technology can't be used outside the browser.
If you're running Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise or Education, you lot tin can utilise Windows Defender Application Guard, which opens untrusted websites in an isolated example of Microsoft Edge to protect the rest of the auto.
There are Application Guard extensions for Chrome and Firefox, only all they practice is let you open dodgy websites in the isolated version of Border instead.
Microsoft built parental controls into the Windows Security Eye, merely they mainly work only with other Microsoft products. The screen-time limits piece of work with Windows or Xbox One, but not a Mac.
The browser filters screen what kids run across in Edge and Internet Explorer, but not in Chrome or Firefox. These two features do work with Android devices, merely the devices need to have the Microsoft Launcher app installed.
Windows Defender: Performance and system impact
Windows Defender's mandatory protection makes calculating safer, but it complicates our testing because information technology means that Defender is always running in the groundwork and at that place's no like shooting fish in a barrel way to generate a pre-installation baseline score comparable to those of other antivirus brands.
(For what it's worth, installing Kaspersky Security Cloud Free actually sped upwardly our system by 0.9%, which hints that it'due south got a lighter background performance impact than Windows Defender.)
To gauge functioning, we used our Excel-based benchmark, which measures how long information technology takes to friction match 20,000 names and addresses in a spreadsheet. Our exam automobile was an Asus X555LA notebook with a 2-GHz Cadre i3-5005U processor, 6GB of RAM and 59.5GB of files on a 500GB difficult drive. This notebook ran Windows 10 with the latest updates.
Windows Defender took an average of 1 hour and 34 minutes to complete a total scan of our examination organisation, the slowest of the free malware apps to examine an entire computer. The quick scan took an average of 3 minutes and 38 seconds, well backside Avast Free Antivirus' 1 infinitesimal and 36 seconds.
With no active scans running, our criterion exam took 13.3 seconds to end, which rose to 16.0 seconds while running a full system scan with Defender. That's a performance drop of twenty% from the normal background load.
Amongst other free antivirus programs, Bitdefender Antivirus Gratis Edition's full scan slowed the system by 26% from the postal service-installation background (not the baseline), and Avast Gratis Antivirus caused a 24% loss.
Much lighter were AVG AntiVirus Free, whose full scan translated into a performance loss of just 7.1% from the background, and Kaspersky Security Cloud Free, which created a 6.7% loss from the background (and a 5.vii% drop from the preinstallation baseline).
Windows Defender's quick-scan results were better, with the benchmark finishing in fifteen seconds. This 13% performance drop was merely outdone by Kaspersky Security Deject Free's 2.1% hit. By contrast, Avast Complimentary Antivirus showed a functioning reject of 47%.
Windows Defender: Interface
The Windows Security Center tin be reached past clicking the shield icon in the Organisation Tray that slides out from the little up arrow in the lesser right of the desktop interface.
The primary window presents you lot with vii features — the kickoff, Virus & Threat Protection, is where you can fine-tune Defender's ransomware protection past toggling the Controlled Binder Access feature, and where y'all tin can mirror key files on OneDrive.
Account Protection specifies how y'all log into Windows, and the Firewall & Network Protection section is obviously for tweaking the firewall. App & Browser Control adjusts Border and the Microsoft Shop'south security settings.
Device Security lets you actuate cadre isolation and memory integrity to help stop fileless-malware attacks. The Device Performance & Wellness section checks your storage, drivers, bombardment (if it's a tablet or notebook) and apps, and provides a mechanism to reinstall Windows while keeping your personal files intact.
Family Options but links to your online Microsoft account, where you tin can ready the aforementioned parental controls.
One big drawback: At that place's no easy way to schedule scans with Windows Defender. Instead, you need to set upwards scans in the Chore Scheduler, which hasn't changed much since Windows Vista and will attempt the resourcefulness and patience of most users.
Windows Defender: Installation and support
Because information technology's office of Windows, there's cipher to install or turn on with Windows Defender. It's there whether you want it or not.
Dissimilar some other free malware programs, notwithstanding, Windows Defender has Microsoft's 24/7 phone and email back up to respond a question or sort out a tough infection. At that place are likewise a lot of resources online, including set-up tips, reports of new malware and detailed instructions.
Windows Defender review: Bottom line
Windows Defender at present provides globe-course malware protection and makes a good argument for not replacing it with a third-party antivirus program. Its only flaws are that some of its protective tasks, like scheduling scans, are hard to gear up upward, and that some of the associated Windows protections employ only to Microsoft's ain browsers.
If y'all want the overall best free antivirus protection with a decent number of actress features, Kaspersky Security Cloud Free is the way to go.
Updated with latest lab-test results. This review was originally published in May 2020.
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Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/uk/reviews/windows-defender
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