Windows Defender Is Becoming the Powerful Antivirus That Windows 10 Needs

My download folder opens immediately, but I don't store tons of executables there.

 

No problems with download folder and 15-20 executables.

 

That's a low number, which is why you have no issues. I've got well over 100 installers in my Downloads folder and hundreds more in the various download folders used by my download managers.

 

Put some multi GB .iso files in the Downloads folder and watch it choke on them for long periods of time.

 

I moved some .exe files ( 60 ) into a subfolder and left only about 10 pieces in download folder ... Now its a lot faster !

 

... but why should I put them there? How could I live with several computer since 1993 without putting tons of .iso files in the downloads folder? It must be a miracle.

 

How many other AV product have the same problem WD has?

While Microsoft have been improving WD in terms of security, they still need to polish the product.

For example, every time I did a full scan my computer ended up with a huge CPU spike. Even waiting many hours didn't fixed the issue. Only rebooting fixed it.

This is why I'm a little hesitant to go back to WD.

 

Are you backing up the warez sites?

 

That seems to be a typical use case...LOL

 

Nope. I'm downloading Linux images for testing in virtual machines.

 

Defender Control v1.6 (December 16, 2019)
Website

 

Warez is often infected with malware, I think it's time to stop downloading now.

 

Not only do I know that, I actually never use pirated software. The software I use, I either bought, is free, or I got for free as a giveaway.

Also, I have a lot of installers for trial versions of software on my system.

 

It's classic misdirection. We point out an issue and get accused of software piracy. Deflect and change the subject so everyone forgets about the subject at hand. Defender is slow with a bunch of files because it re-scans them every time. Until this product behavior changes it will remain true.

 

Perhaps in time. I am still satisfied with my current AV enough to not bother trying at this point in time.

 

I am sure this may be true for you, with your specialized circumstances, but you do realize don't you, that for the vast majority of people who do not have huge amounts of executive files in a folder this is not a relevant issue at all.

Even for the few who have a huge amount of executables in a folder - how often do you open it??

Should the program be evaluated by how it may impact a fraction of 1 percent of atypical users?

To me, it seems the subject at hand is, how well does this program perform on a daily basis for the typical person who may want to use it.

 

it can, /v "TamperProtection" /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

old news by now but WD gets a tad better with 1903 mitigation options - hope they continue down this road, ie May 2019 Baseline:

Spoiler

(tweaks via cmd, WD anti tamper is on by default)
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Features" /v TamperProtection /t REG_DWORD /d 5 /f
REG ADD "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SCMConfig" /v EnableSvchostMitigationPolicy /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

still not enough for me to trust it to use WD plus WF (if you go to BleepingComputers they will advertize this option after cleaning your PC), more mitigations like these for all known processes misbehaving, like
regsvr32.exe (registry server), rundll32.exe, dnx.exe and so on, a 100 or so lolbins part of download/execute technique and 100 exploitable streams, which constitute just a part of vulnerabilities (many old undocumented APIs like TxF and other "features" thanks to Windows backward compatibility)
but for sure Microsoft is more serious about security now and it all started with EMET in my humble opinion, a second groundbreaking change after UAC in Vista, after EMET it all started accelerating (papers, conferences, security features and so on), it can only be better now

 

It is not just true for a downloads folder with many executables, but I have several folders with many portables. Same there.

 

I tried to go back to it by uninstalling KSC Free, and it slowed down file browsing. I'll wait for them to improve it further.

 

I'm not wishing to be rude but feel I must make the point the .iso files are not executable and if not mounted just pretty much lie there doing nothing. The repeated scanning of these files seems excessive when they are no threat as is.

I also expect that the typical user has no idea what WD is doing as there is no visual indication it is doing anything and requires some kind of process monitor to even realize how much of a performance hit you are getting. I was sitting here one day listening to my hard drive chugging away and wondering what was running when I had to use Process Explorer to see that it was in fact WD running and locked on an unmounted .iso file. In this case it was actually a Windows 10 installation .iso so all the worse they don't trust their own files.

WD is a definitely better than nothing solution but as long as there are issues I will complain about said issues because nobody is going to fix them if nobody says anything.

 

+1

 

Portables are executables.

I open my download folders quite often. As a result, I will never use Windows Defender or any other antivirus that causes slowdowns when opening them.

Well it's something to be aware of. It certainly is an issue for those users, even if it isn't for anyone else. In general, I find Windows Defender to be fairly heavy at times, even when not opening large folders, which why I use in on none of computers.

 

Did someone mention, that WD has an option to exclude folders?
Also storage settings has an option to delete unused files in download folder, after 30 days.
Should be set to on by default, to make users realize, that the download folder is for temporary use.

 

Yes, thank you for the reminder. So, I've excluded the Downloads folder now via Virus and Threat Protection Settings because I find Defender is spending too much time scanning there. Also, at times, I right-click to scan individual .exe, also with HitmanPro. That way, I'm more confident about excluding things.

By the way, running Windows 2004, the Downloads folder is now removed from Disk Cleanup.

 

I have never used the download folder for any temporary use and probably never will.