What’s new in Windows Defender ATP Fall Creators Update

OK?

 

shhhhh Bill most don't know a tinfoil hat is no good unless it is grounded by a wire. so that all signals that hit it are returned to ground.

 

I'm not the one on the hot seat here. They can telemetry until the cows come home for all I care.

But there are plenty who absolutely will not stand for anything even remotely resembling that the potential to this very day still exists (whether fact or fiction).

Moreover you can't help but to see exactly where that reluctance stems from, after so many NSA Tools openly surfaced which are designed to poke swiss cheese into Windows.

It boils down to a matter of trust and plenty of user's will likely choose privacy over Windows Defender protection particularly because of that revelation.

No matter how better refined it is being made to be there are skeptics who simply will choose other alternatives for better or worse.

 

I use Comodo Firewall and Cruelsister's settings. I also have Windows Defender running. I reckon paranoia results from something. In my case, MS, or the NSA, CIA, FBI or another alphabet agency can follow me all they want and collect all the info they want. Apple is welcome to bird dog me too if they want. They'll all die from boredom.

 

Same on this end. In fact I am rather cautiously enthusiastic over Windows Defender finally shaping up a bit.

@Chuck57

Where have you been and how are things on your end lately. Long time or else I been everyplace else where you haven't posted or I missed it.

Anyways great to see you again.

 

Busy, busy, Easter. Wife and I with her very elderly mother for the past few months, so between taking her to Doctor visits, etc neither of us has much spare time, and that will continue for as long as she's around. Writing when I have time and published a couple of books, that took way too long to write because of the situation. In the meantime, I wonder if our home is still standing. LOL.......Doing well otherwise.

 

I know you'll be there as always through thick and thin so best wishes to you and family for any improvements for the situation.

It's still a very welcome sight to find a post of yours again so just wanted to pass that along you are missed.

Continued success on the books and have you any opinions on this new version or any recent version of Windows Defender that you might like to share too?

Regards EASTER

 

lol

And yet, they complain not about Google tracking, using and selling their search information for targeted ads, or their ISPs who not only know everything they are doing on the Internet, but they know our real names, real street address and our billing information too. And these same folks complain not about their cell phone carriers that know their real names, street addresses, billing information and what you do on the Internet, they know who they've talked to and texted, where they have been, where they are standing within a few feet or even the aisle of the store they are standing in, the direction they are heading and how fast they are traveling. But Microsoft is the one they are worried might violate their privacy?

Yeah, I mean really, unless you are engaged in serious on-line criminal activity, what's the worry? It sure should not be Microsoft - unless you are storing records of your illegal activity in Microsoft's cloud storage, OneDrive (but then that has nothing to do with telemetry).

 

Points worthy of making, at least from this end, and by comparison it can be said there's a great divide between them.

But more on topic, as I said earlier, if Windows (New) Defender can or does prove they can bite those bugs off rapidly/efficiently and decisively as well as stem with behavioral Detection potential professional as well as script kiddie binders crap without taxing my systems I say go for it. Otherwise off it comes.

Security is never been an issue on this end. Getting a first taste of being hammered early on with Windows 98 spurred an ambition to take to offense and so by Windows XP was applying solid defensive measures and even captures of malware/rootkit drivers in a sandbox/virtual and turned some of those right back on them to hide (Alternate Data Streams/Other Methods) active security programs and tools that disable access to Read/Write the SDDT Table/PhysicalDrive/DriverLoadings of any sort etc. and worked to perfection IMHO.

When you are as performance conscious as some of us are, you notice almost immediately when something is trying to bog you down and/or introduce unnecessary interruptions and so begins basic process elimination of the known potential culprits first/software conflicts/etc. before looking into the guts of other matters.

So far I haven't seen much of a negative impact on my own local CPU Cores with Windows Defender but am interested in finding the happy ground for some of their Task Scheduled triggers. It is something of a balancing act to bring things in Sync to get the utmost performance from your good machine without sacrificing the security gadgets WDA actively employs or interfering with their normal operations too but as we all know and have seen, they are still a work in progress.

 

People seem to misinterpret some telemetry from AV actually gathering files like documents or lines of code you create for living, which can be used for whatever purpose, as stated in TOS.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/antivirus-tracking-youd-surprised-sends

Considering, that Microsoft have caused some arrest by searching through private unecrypted files on its cloud services, it is pretty obvious, what the privacy concern is about. It is about privacy.

 

I use OneDrive, and Google Drive, both clouds. I store my all sorts of files there, all encrypted via Gpg4win. My laptop documents files are all encrypted and anything I want absolutely secure (tax info) is on a removable drive, also encrypted. I don't concern myself with what they see online, but I don't hang out in weird or dark places either. They can follow all they want, use my browsing data any way they want, or they can call me and I'll tell them where I go.

 

It should be noted, in spite of all the bad publicity received from "synthetic" laboratory comparison testings, WD has been protecting users just fine for years. It is the default solution in all W8/W10 systems, after all and millions and millions of users stick with the defaults (because they work). If those user's systems were being infected, you know the IT press would be all over that with HUGE sensationalized headlines.

I like to say you don't need an Abrams Tank to drive around safely. You just need a properly maintained, modern, but "basic" car, and you MUST drive defensively. That's why Windows Defender is just fine for the vast majority of users. That does not mean the alternatives are bad, just that they don't ensure a safer computing experience.

That was in interesting read. Thanks for that link! What I found most revealing and surprising is the products that do NOT allow users to opt-out of sending personal files. Those included AVG, BitDefender, BullGuard, McAfee, TrendMicro and Webroot. All others, including Microsoft BTW, do allow users to block that feature. I note that report was from 2014, but I suspect not much has changed.

It should be noted those actions by Microsoft were the response to, and at the direction of legal court orders and the searches were focused on the accounts named in those court orders only. They are not wasting resources trying to dig up dirt on their customers.

Smart! Anything you store in the cloud should be encrypted. This is not to protect you from Microsoft or Google, but from hackers breaking their way into those services.

 

I should know. WD seems to be ok on my Windows 8.1 which by the way and this is probably off topic but despite Windows 8 doesn't garner much positive forum press, and aside from the shock to it's first introduction with TILES and such, I have no beef with it really.
And if M$ had introduced it more smartly or shall we say eloquently, like maybe have the tiles desktop + Win 8 desktop swivel/pivot around via a button in the first place instead of freaking users out, it may have been more easily adopted perhaps, I dunno, but that's another topic entirely of course.

To the Windows Defender latest version. More power to them if they can pull off the balancing act as far as minimizing system resources with those new modules which they seem to be doing well enough to date.

Couple those with added mitigations etc. and this should be a stout enough on security O/S for a change out of the box once complete.

 

You can say all you want, but personally I don't feel comfortable with it, and I'm not buying it. The amount of data that Windows 10 is collecting is ridiculous so Win Defender would be my last choice. You might want to read this:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/antivirus-tracking-youd-surprised-sends/
http://blog.emsisoft.com/2014/06/17...e-most-privacy-conscious-anti-malware-around/

 

It really is a great OS. It's problem was Microsoft's misguided "marketing" decision to force the new UI down users throat. And it was all marketing. The intent was to force users to get used to the new UI so the next time they went shopping for new smart phone, they would pick up a Windows phone and automatically be familiar with it, and like it. Didn't work on either front. People didn't like the new UI and Windows phone market share is less than 1%.

Are you following this thread or just cheery picking comments? And did you read your links - especially the first and same one TairikuOkami and I already referenced above? Did you note how WD gives us users the option to opt-out of such telemetry? And how many popular alternatives don't?

Look, I don't care if you don't want to use WD. Just don't bash it (or W10) for things that are not true. See Ed Bott's article, No, Microsoft is not spying on you with Windows 10 and his follow-up, Microsoft tries to clear the air on Windows 10 privacy furor.

And check out Mark Kaelin's Tech Republic article, Five Windows 10 privacy settings that have been falsely vilified.

If you really feel the way you do, IMO, you should not be using any Microsoft products. After all, except for some games, there nothing you can't do with Linux, and usually without spending a dime. Just don't assume you are secure or free from invasion of privacy if you do.

 

I need to look in to it. But I wonder if you read the articles that claim that even when you disable a lot of telemetry stuff, Win 10 continues to collect certain data, that's says it all. Even the EU and EFF complained about it. But if you want to act all naive, that's cool with me. In general, AV's are bad for privacy, just read the links. And BTW, I'm very happy with Win 8.1, when I buy my next machine, I'm going to remove Win 10. In Win 8, you can at least disable most of the tracking stuff.

 

@Bill_Bright Now that the cat is clearly out of the bag regarding leaked tools (and on the loose!) of a total penetration nature (under the hood kernel exploits etc) it might be a pretty tough lift to muster up any persuasive enough argument in defense of Windows 10's transmission of data services (in whatever form they currently exist).

However I have one shining light of redemption to offer.

Suppose Windows Defender (new version) + Mitigations were shockingly offered with some backward compatibility for early versions too.

I know that was a stretch but it sure looked good from this end.

Aside from something close to this there's little much to go on except for customers/users to see things any other way then they do now.

In other words they will likely either customize it or use it as is I suppose.

Have a good day all, back to more tech matters for this member.

 

Naive? lol Yeah right. I read (a lot) and research (even more) to make sure I am not being naive. And I provide links to support my claims. Here's another: Do You Need to Worry About Privacy in Windows 10? Answer is NO.

Where are your links that say we need to worry about this?

I NEVER EVER said Microsoft is not collecting telemetry. I said the data they collect does not affect my "security". Nor does it really affect my personal privacy either because my real name, real street address, physical location or anything else that personally identifies me (except perhaps my IP address) is collected. But even so, my IP address points to my PoP (point of presence - where my ISP connects me to the Internet backbone). And that is 10 miles away in the next town over!

You are rationalizing a position based on some possible futuristic "what if" scenario?

Suppose Rasheed's cherished Emsisoft decides to change their privacy policy - which they can do any time they want - and decide to collect and sell as much personal information of their users they can? Does that mean you should not use Emsisoft now? Of course not.

Sorry, Rasheed, but this demonstrates the naivety of it all. You are going to dump a more "secure" operating system for a superseded OS so you can control the sending of "anonymous" information to Microsoft.

My problem which has been illustrated in this thread is the unjustified disproportionate level of bias, disdain and distrust for Microsoft in general and WD specifically, when Google, our ISPs, cell phone carriers and others are the much greater offenders. Where's the disdain for Congress sells out our privacy to the ISPs?

Instead, people are whining about Microsoft, Windows 10 and Windows Defender? Gimme a break!

 

Oh yeah! How could I forget Facebook? Facebook moderators are granted "full access" to any account once it's been flagged by the social network's algorithms!

 

Microsoft mentioned, that they are using algorithms to find illegal content in user accounts, if they find something, they can issue an warrant as a probable cause.
Cloud services in AVs, like ATP, are similar, since each computer is easily identifiable, so I always disable them, just to be sure, even if it lowers malware detection.

 

Well, that makes sense. People can only reduce the telemetry not disable all of it, so of course some data is still collected.
Can you imagine how awful/bothersome Windows would be if the average user could disable all the telemetry? People would start complaining that the OS isn't functioning correctly.

> In Win 8, you can at least disable most of the tracking stuff
So, it's like Windows 10 then. You can't disable all of it.

 

I have no problem with Win 8.1. I'm on 10 but if anything happened, I'd happily return to 8.1. It's stable and fast on this computer and using the classic desktop but flipping to tiles for searching, I could find things faster than with Win 10. I've only seen 8 a couple of times and never used it so can't comment.

 

That's why for the like of me Chuck57, I still don't understand why M$ didn't just fashion for example an eye-candy in the form of 3D BumpTop/DeskHedron/RealDesktop type of switching between Tiles and Windows normal desktop to give the introduction some flair and users easy access.

That's past now but I agree, it took a stump removal to pull away from XP but when I did I went straight into Windows 8 mainly because they were already OEM on the units I bought.

I still use WinFlip on Windows 10 as well as Madotate, two dated but very useful programs to make it easier to slide desktop window programs out of the way while multitasking. And works like a charm.

 

You say "they" can issue a warrant, Microsoft sure can't. There still has to be a court order and probable cause.

The problem is, there is a fine line that providers of "social media" content must now dance about. As Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook just recently noted, they cannot just sit by and let malicious, inciting, and terroristic threats and content go unchecked. So these companies (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Microsoft, Google, etc.) have no choice but to be proactive - even if that means treading on the privacy of the innocent. Blame the bad guys, not Microsoft and Facebook. Then note the second line of my signature.

I explained this above. They wanted the "Metro" UI to become common across all their platforms so users would "naturally" pick up a Windows phone and automatically feel comfortable with it, and intuitively know how to use it. This was simply, and once again, total and misguided arrogance on the part of Microsoft marketing/PR, and executive decisions. It was not the fault of the developers.

Fortunately, there are great alternatives like Start8 and Start10 (which I use on this PC and my notebook) to bring back the familiar W7 Start menu and desktop, or Classic Shell which many like too, or StartIsBack.

 

What they want and what they got are two different things.

Which by the way they found out and are still finding out with the absolute percentage of Windows 7 users who reverted back and are staying there.

With Android and Apple dancing high they just had to stick their two-cents in there too. It's always a matter for them of keeping up with the jones.

That arrogance is coming back to bite hard too. This is the ages old trouble with monopolies and always trips up moving forward in an orderly fashion no matter the industry IMO.