AV-Comparatives: Real-World Protection Test February-May 2022

The last time I tried it, it was still a buggy program with all types of funny and irritating problems. The Avira engine, signatures, cloud and even behavior blocker (picked up from Bullguard and adapted), is decent if not great, but I wish they'd take care of their program.

At this point, I'd recommend users to go for any program that uses the Avira engine but not Avira itself. I went through so much trouble trying to get an "intelligent" product low on alerts, good on protection, controlled FPs and automatic updates for the program version for my parents who are 65+ years old and I found that only Avast/AVG, BullGuard, VIPRE, F-Secure, BitDefender and eScan are friendly enough that the alerts are not confusing enough and there aren't serious bugs affecting quality of life. Out of these, BullGuard is on life support (thanks Norton!), BitDefender doesn't work well on all PCs; eScan doesn't have automatic program updates and Avast/AVG likes to advertise in full page pop-up "what's new in the new version" (which no one really wants to see, just do your job and don't give me these needless alerts?), leaving only VIPRE and F-Secure as viable solutions for not-so-experienced users - and of course, Windows Defender.

When companies can't get even basic design right like this, why do they wonder about why they're losing their market share to Windows Defender? If someone pays for software he/she expects it to just work, update itself and not give me alerts about your numerous other products or what's new. Alerts should be only when malware is blocked, at least by default for the average joe to use.

 

So, where does that leave "first party" av apps? IIRC, you were giving Defender a shot. Frankly, I wonder if Defender was a splurge of good luck and if it can continue to hold its own as it has for the previous 18 -- months or so via AV-Comparatives or wherever.
Maybe you're willing to throw MD into the permanent mix and call it a day with Sandboxie. I've done the same with no regrets. Although, those Bitdefender and Kaspersky results sure do look enticing over and over and over again to maybe ditch MD and keep Sandboxie
as a permanent staple with either BD or Kaspersky. Decisions, decisions.

 

Oh, I've been running Defender for several years now, along with some helper programs. I figure (and absolute respect to all) that if something has the capability to slither out of hardened Sandboxie, then prob. any antivirus, Defender included, may have a problem. So I use OS Armor also.

Doesn't hurt performance on here either which is a big deal to me. Can't stand any software that envelops my machine like a big smelly cloud. I remember when AVG Tuneup did that. Never. Again. But everyone's different and some would disagree. That's cool.

 

When I was using Panda a few years ago I saw very few false positives, despite me often downloading new and little known software.

 

In my experience, I never had a false positive with Panda.

 

Thanks for the heads up and I agree with you. It is a shame all the way around. I never got around to trying Vipre but I have used F-Secure and I like it. I have a license for it until late next year and I may give that a go again. I used ESET for years but have a weird issue with it on my home PC. At work we run ESET as well. I am also waiting for the new version of Kaspersky to get finalized. It's light and works rather well now in beta. Cheers.

 

Do you enjoy UIs that look like a 13 year old in 1995 designed it?

 

My bad, must have missed this. Yes false positives are a problem of course. BTW, I watched a YouTube test and Malwarebytes was simply disabled by the Ryuk ransomware, so self protection isn't too good apparently. Too bad he didn't test it with other AV's.

Gulity as charged, I don't make regular system back ups, as I should be doing.

I absolutely hate it that Win Defender depends on the cloud so much, this tells me that its locally based heuristics/behavior blocking sucks. And seems that WD's cloud failed to block 7 malware samples, very weird. I'm still content with WD, but I sure as hell would not stop using extra protection tools.

 

Don't forget K7. (By the way, there is NO such thing as Windows Defender.)
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Huh

 

Task Scheduler and File Explorer disagree...

 

Someone should inform Microsoft -- they apparently believe they renamed Windows Defender to Microsoft Defender. (However, a rose by any other name, t'would smell as sweet, wot?).

 

I prefer drunkennes, rather than WD or MD
Oh well..

 

At this point the UI says "Windows Security". I don't think they can keep up with themselves.
I really wouldn't be surprised if they renamed it to "365 Security" at some point.

 

On my Win 10 1909 system it's still named Windows Defender, so I will continue to use this name. It somehow also sounds a bit cooler.

 

On my WD 19044 my (program) file is named "Windows Defender" so I will stay with that.

 

@Bunkhouse Buck and @Rasheed187 If you refuse to accept Microsoft's name change all is lost, you are doomed.

 

Man you are right "in name only" lol

 

Keep on thread hijack...........