Windows Defender Is Becoming the Powerful Antivirus That Windows 10 Needs

I always suspected as much. Thanks @SeriousHoax & @Rasheed187 for pointing out that particular difference. I agree it is a flaw and should been an easy fix. Makes one wonder what if that issue was reversed and Real Time blocked it instead.

 

It's definitely a huge flaw, because I don't see why .exe files do get scanned by the cloud and MSI files not always apparently.

 

Has anyone seen CruelSister1's latest video?

Microsoft seems to have fixed the problem with magniber ransomware, but they haven't fixed the issue with script based ransomware

 

Well, Defender isn't bullet-proof but has improved its capability overall. I find it is still fluctuating in the lab tests.

I refuse to run it alone;I don't care what some people say. Maybe Microsoft will get around to fixing whatever sometime but I ain't waiting for perfection, you could easily wait forever. Besides, the Controlled Folder Access still can be so annoying, it's hardly worth it to me.

 

Which is a concern only for security geeks and not the masses who use default M$ Defender everyday.

 

My biggest beef with Windows WD is the way that they make you drill down so far into the Windows Security settings, miniaturize some to deliberately throw you off and make confusion. They are very lame at organizing fluid settings in a manner that isn't user friendly and as always, cause you to waste so dang much good time and effort digging thru all that jungle.

 

Windows Security's UI is an abomination. That's why nowadays when testing it formally, just test it at defaults b/c by and large,I think that's what people are mainly going to leave it at anyway. I surely don't mess with it, not even the Exploit protections. Only things that are always manually toggled to ON are the Core Isolation/Memory Integrity and Secure Boot. The rest I leave up to the third parties to handle.

I like seeing screenshots people post sometimes of the third parties' UIs. They often leave Defender's groveling in the dust. Look at Avast's for example, so nice and clean and easily navigated. Just sayin'--no bias intended at all.

 

That right there is a smart person. Nothing is infallible. I would personally reccomend running voodooshield along side MSD, with a few tweaks in VS

 

Perfectly put @plat and user's are faced with such a distorted settings view, not more neatly aligned menus which would go a long way in helping users comb and find what they look for instead of the slapstick manner they seem to threw together. "Ah let them find it (particular settings) and figure it out"

I still can't on Windows 10 dismiss that notorious Protection Log, it just adds up until i guess until they decide to clear it themselves at some arbitrary schedule pre set. I hate that. The user should after satisfying START ACTIONS not have the log list stuck like glue. Oh i know the tricks of going into Program Data and deleting the Service Logs manually but there again, time & effort running down more things they should have already long ago corrected before releasing the thing.

 

Yes I saw it, but I'm not sure how it works. So first a script file is executed or what? And then WD is completely blind to it? And are LOLBins also being used?

Well, from a technical point of view it's kinda interesting. And more experienced users like us would probably not open a script file, but the masses would probably easily be tricked, so I'm not sure if it's a non issue.

 

BTW, I have noticed something really weird. As soon as I open streamwijzer.nl in Vivaldi, then Win Defender will start using 10% of the CPU and it takes quite a while for the website to load. I wonder how the heck this is possible since WD isn't doing any web scanning right? Perhaps you guys can check it out?

 

You would think they should have better specialists with super quality control than in which shows us with the end product they dispense to these machines, especially this big dog MS AV but it is IMHO woefully so inadequate and indictive of their continued incompetence.

 

Did you or anyone else check this out? It still happens sometimes, so as soon as I open streamwijzer.nl (it's about video streaming services in Holland) then the website will load after about 40 seconds in Vivaldi. And the MsMpEng.exe process, which is related to Win Defender will use 10% of the CPU, causing my laptop fans to start spinning. What's so special about this website and is anyone else seeing this, perhaps it's a Win 10 thing?

 

Checked the site out on my PC and had almost no CPU usage from MD while I tested on Chrome, Edge and Firefox. Don't have Vivaldi installed, so can't test there.

 

Thanks, there's definitely something weird going on, it doesn't make any sense because Win Def doesn't perform any HTTP scanning right? And Win SmartScreen isn't even working in Vivaldi if I'm correct, so why is WD triggered almost everytime I visit streamwijzer.nl, it's crazy stuff. It might be related to Vivaldi acting funny because I'm also not seeing it with Edge and Firefox.

 

Edge is the only browser they support.
More info: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/w...creen/microsoft-defender-smartscreen-overview

 

OK, then I was right about this. I have to say that since posting about this problem it seems like this issue has disappeared for now, so I'm starting to think that I'm hacked, perhaps it's some invisible rootkit that's monitoring to me.

 

Probably not but there are various scanners you can check with.

 

All kidding aside, it's probably some weird quirk related to Vivaldi and Win Defender, but still strange that it has somehow disappeared while this problem has been around for weeks. Perhaps it's indeed time to perform some scanning, which I almost never do.

 

It's probably more likely that if something changed that some unidentified update broke/fixed something. But scanning won't hurt, just in case.

 

If you don't have it already installed try adding the MS Defender extension from the Chrome store in Vivaldi. The extension will link Vivaldi to MS Smart Screen to help block malware in the browser. The Malwarebytes Browser Guard extension from the Chrome store works very well too. Both will help against malware.

Jimmy

 

Read the reviews and think twice before using this. Many complaints of excessive false positives.

 

SmartScreen doesn't like unsigned executables. Neither does Norton Power Eraser. Just sayin'.

 

I can't complain about SmartScreen extension.
I'm running it on my own machines, and hundreds of private customer machines.
Maybe a temporary glitch, or incompatible software, caused some to complain.

 

I use both in Chrome and any other chromium browser. I use the MBAM Browser Guard in Firefox and Edge. Neither extension has really ever picked up anything except when I tested with the Amtso test files. I think once the MBAM extension blocked an actual phishing page but that is all the action I have seen from either one.

Jimmy