Windows 10 Defender

I've upgraded my devices from Windows 7 to Windows 10, so I have no experience with Defender. Win 7 had MSE, which I did not use. How good is Windows 10 Defender? Is it just baseline or, if you practice good surfing habits, is it enough with SmartScreen and Win Firewall? I really just have no idea. I currently use WSA on 4 devices and KIS on 1 of them.

 

Windows Defender is MSE, it was renamed to it on Vista, now they used the old name again. It is good enough, not perfect, but it will do with WF.

http://blogs.microsoft.com/cybertru...soft-security-essentials-which-one-do-i-need/

 

I'm just going to run WSA along with Win firewall and smartscreen and be done with it. I have a few months left on my KIS subscription and then that one's gone. WSA doesn't slow anything down or cause bloat so I'm good.

 

The first thing I did after the upgrade was to disable Windows Defender as I don't use any real time AV on my personal machine. I used option 2 from this tutorial: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/5918-windows-defender-turn-off-windows-10-a.html

 

Yes to both questions.

 

I don't have any experience with Windows 8, so my observations are bounced off my years with 7...

Is that Defender "Cloud-based Protection" new in Windows 10?

I also see a "Windows Defender Network Inspection Service" (along with the Windows Defender Service itself) in the Services console. Also new??

I can't dig into Windows 10 Defender on my test box until I do an uninstall of the IS app I'm testing. Sometime later, maybe.

And Windows Smart Screen, new also in 10, I think. It runs (depending on a user setting) even if Defender or another AV/IS is running or not.

It looks like MS has maybe added some horsepower to its protection scheme. It'll be interesting to watch how that pans out in the usual comparisons and user experience.

Thanks.

 

Windows 10 Defender presentation at Ignite, May 2015.

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Ignite/2015/BRK2327

 

The cloud based protection has allways been in MSE (sends information about potential security problems) as has the Network Inspection Engine. It`s pretty much the same as its been for ages, actually probably less configurable now in Windows 10!
Smartscreen has been in for ages as well but only at the desktop level since Windows 8

 

Interesting. They've done some nice work on improving it in Windows 10.

 

Bitdefender FREE works with the new WIN 10
Windows Defender works better since it was updated in the WIN 10..

 

Oh yeah, right. Defender in Windows 7 (no MSE) not the same as 8 & 10 Defender. Duh. My bad. Sorry for the waste of valuable forum bandwidth.

My only experience with smart screen anything is SmartScreen Filter under IE's Safety settings. So in 8 it went desktop as Windows SmartScreen. Interesting. It's as attention-getting as UAC.

Thanks for bringing me up to speed.

 

Where you live may be a factor in choosing Windows Defender according to the Malware prevalence worldwide section on page 65 of the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report, Volume 17.
located here.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=44937

 

Applies to every AV.

 

Context Awereness feature of Windows 10 results in zero delay when starting (known) good applications. It does check known good to be still good, but this check is spawned when system is idle. These post execution checks still spike at 40% CPU (on my modest G3240 dual core), but user does not notice that in real world usage (on an endpoint PC).

I did not use an AV on Windows 7 because I thought my setup was strong enough without it. On Windows10 I do use Windows Defender, simply because it adds near zero system drag. Win10 has some more advanced security features as Windows 7, but now I also have an AV on board. Together with reputation check of Smartscreen it will catch 90-95% of the malware against 0.01% CPU usage and near zero usage delays.

 

Out-of-box system impact with Microsoft Windows Defender on Microsoft Windows 8.1: 18.1 points
http://chart.av-comparatives.org/chart1.php?chart=chart4&year=2015&month=5&sort=1
----
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/thre...rformance-tests-may-2015.377606/#post-2503918

P.S. Yes, I know..... test refers to Windows 8.1 and not to 10.

 

I agree with you completely about the resource usage and system drag of Windows defender. But out of habit I disable it. Its one of the first things I do on a clean PC. Still, credit where its due. In windows 10 it is unoticable to the point where i was thinking about leaving it on.

 

On older CPUs, Windows Defender causes slowdowns at times due to high CPU.

 

AV-C: Performance-Test May 2015, PDF, page 4:

http://chart.av-comparatives.org/chart1.php?chart=chart4&year=2015&month=5&sort=1

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-4210U+@+1.70GHz&id=2259
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-4210U+@+1.70GHz&id=2259

 

Windows 10 is the first context aware OS of Microsoft

 

How good is Windows 10 Defender when it comes to file blocking/prevention, detection, removal, real world dynamic tests, this is all what I'm interested in in the first place.
We don't have tests to actually see how truly good or how truly bad Windows 10 is in protection abilities against all forms of malware, I truly hope we will eventually get these results, hopefully.

 

I think the people expecting Defender in Windows 10 to be some miraculous leap in improvement are too hopeful.

It is an improvement without a doubt, and when combined with SmartScreen does create a (debatably) suitable line of defense, which is really all the OP was asking.

 

Windows Defender: Rise of the machine (learning)

http://blogs.technet.com/b/mmpc/arc...ws-defender-rise-of-the-machine-learning.aspx

 

Thanks

 

Windows 10 Defender

• Stable and well integrated
  
• Basic
  
• Mediocre protection
  
• Lack of zero-day protection