Windows Defender Is Becoming the Powerful Antivirus That Windows 10 Needs

I don't know why it does that, it's rude behavior as far as I am concerned. It's like a waiter clearing the table while you are in the middle of your meal, and taking away your plate without asking.

As for ConfigureDefender, the idea is like this: Microsoft intended these advanced rules to be used in Enterprise edition of Windows, as part of their paid security services. That's why they are hidden settings. ConfigureDefender makes them accessible for ordinary users, and when you enable them, it's like Clark Kent turning into Superman. But watch out.

 

@mekelek, the Voodooshield snafu only affected downloads through the Edge browser. I downloaded and installed Voodooshield by means of Chrome, at the height of the problem, while running Windows Defender with almost every ASR rule enabled, and Windows Defender was quiet as a mouse.
But in the bigger picture, you are right that Windows Defender has a problem with FPs.

 

Interesting read about this behavior, luckily I haven't run into it yet, or I'm just blind lol, but I will have to keep an eye out for it. I also agree in regards to the settings. Microsoft intended these for their enterprise customers, hence why they are hidden. Us security geeks tend to look at this and go "well that's stupid why did they hide them", but reality is we are the minority, Microsoft looks at their customer base as a whole. I'm sure another reason as to why their are hidden is they don't want to have tons of support calls from home users because they played with the settings.

Interestingly enough I haven't had this issue with Voodooshield. I managed to download it fine both through Edge and Chrome, WD did not flag it for me. I find it strange that it happens for some but not others. I do agree that Microsoft does need to get their FP's under control though.

 

If you don't like Windows Defender and you don't use it, why bother posting to this thread? To "warn" people about the "dangers" of WD? Go back to Comodo, Kaspersky, etc. threads and enjoy! WD works fine for many of us. The whole purpose of these forums is to help people! Complainers have FB, T and reddit! Sayonara!

 

Well said

 

I agree! Unfortunately there are some that cannot accept the fact the WD has improved over the years. Some people always look at the negatives and are quick to take pot shots at WD/WD users every time. There are lots of great programs out there, choose what you like, no one is forcing you to use WD. Not every program fits everyone's needs and that's totally fine. WD IMHO has come along ways from where it first started, its not perfect, then again no product is truly perfect, but its a very capable program. If one takes the time to tweak WD and maybe add a program or two to fill in some gaps, you will be well off. No setup if perfect and regardless of which program/setup you choose to use, you still have to have good computing habits as nothing is 100% fool proof.

 

I recently was on WD sucks train. I currently have Voodooshield and OSArmor running along with WD. After trying Avast, Kaspersky and other free AV's I realized that the extra load wasn't needed. WD by itself has improved over the years and along with these other two programs, I'm in a good place. It's a integrated AV that performs well and doesn't suck as much as it used to.

 

I have the exact same configuration since two month now and I see no reason to change. Running smooth and no slowdown...

 

I am just writing my opinion, giving review, sharing experience. Stop trying to ban people from expressing their opinion or sharing information. This behavior is contrary to the sense of a 'forum'. Google that term.
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Really guys? Do you think that is acceptable behavior of WD? Do you like having to go in the event viewer to get basic information about detections?

I actually did look in the EV right now and found out that ALL of the detections WD told me about (Those in the temp folder with generic names from a page before) are there because Emsisoft Emergency Kit put copies of my NirSoft tools in the temp folder while scanning or because Google Drive made temp copies of them while uploading! While the detection is understandable and good, it is incredibly bad to not tell the user where the files come from! The file names had no information regarding their origin.
Only now, after looking in the Event Viewer, do I know that all those detections are (basically) false positives, and that my PC was always clean! Unacceptable behavior!!

Do you actually like that?

 

Hard_Configurator comes with a very cool log, it is actually based on a Nir Sofer tool, it shows you all that WD info without sweating.

 

A third party tool does not count as 'part of WD' and is therefore not be included when talking about WD and its capabilities or issues. 0.02$

 

Okay, bro. By the way, I am now using Kaspersky Security Cloud Free. It's even lighter than Windows Defender, and has less FPs. But I still think that WD with tweaks is better protection. Since I have SRP, it doesn't matter to me.

 

@__Nikopol

No one is trying to get you banned or supress your opinion regarding WD. I do apologize if it came across that way, but its still a very valid point. There are some people, not only here, but else where, where no matter what, always focus on the negatives and cannot admit that WD has improved. Many of these people do not use WD, nor have they used it in a very, very long time, but still seem to take pot shots at people for liking/using WD. It's ok to have an opinion, but it does become tiring when these people constantly make statements when its very evident they haven't used WD in a long time. At that point it changes from having an opinion to trolling (I am by no means saying you are trolling people, just speaking generally here)

At the end of the day after reading many of your posts, its very evident that WD does not fit your needs and that totally cool! As I've said while it has improved its not perfect and does have it warts, but so do other programs. The thing with WD is that Microsoft can do things (ie hide settings within Windows, place info in event viewer) that others cannot do. Again, if you look at it, Microsoft targets these things to IT Pros (their Enterprise customers), not us geeks, hence why it's like that. It may seem stupid to us, but to Microsoft it makes sense, again they aren't just focusing on us, they look at their customer base as a whole and make decisions on what they think is best for the vast majority of their customers. For home users, you still get a notification that a particular file was detected (on the desktop), but that's all the every home owner needs, how many of them truly want to look the detailed info, or even understand it? Probably not many aside from us security geeks.

As I've said its clear that WD doesn't fit your needs, so I would try out some different programs to see what you like best. No one is going to fault you for trying to make WD work, nor is anyone going to fault you if you want to use something else, again that's totally cool! Choose what works best for you and fits your needs

 

OK
But to make that clear: You and shmu26 agreed to someone that wrote: "If you don't like Windows Defender and you don't use it, why bother posting to this thread?" Which is both wrong and stupid.

My critic has nothing to do with how long I have used it. I actually used it for many month until now. It would be the same when I just changed to it or used it for years. It is quite an unlikely scenario.

I always thought the vast majority, those on whom they orient their products, are home users. It is hard to believe that Microsoft targets anything they do at IT professionals, as they are the ones who complain the most.

Yes, but sometimes it sounds like you people are defending your precious Dorodango from others, who say it's just a dry ball of mud. That was the only issue I had with you. I don't care if people are disapproving, just about how they do.

 

My issue wasn't with you (sorry if it came across that way), more so the people who haven't used WD since either Windows 8 or since Windows 10 was released (I've read some of their posts in this thread and you can tell which ones are purposely trolling) and act like nothing has changed, when in fact Microsoft has made some great improvements over the years. It's far from perfect, but its better than it use to be.

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That's totally fair TBH I can tell that you were using WD recently and I respect your frustrations, Windows can be a frustrating thing to use at times.

I use to think that, but surprisingly Microsoft's biggest customer is their enterprise customers. Actually they make the vast majority of their money from enterprises when it comes to Windows. If you look at the majority of announcements that Microsoft makes in regards to WD and security in general, many of those improvements and capabilities are directed towards their enterprise offerings. How many times do you read an announcement, you get excited, only to get to the bottom and see, " available for Windows ATP customers and Windows versions Pro and up."

That's totally fair, some times we can get emotional when it comes to products we like (in general), some times it is due to frustration from the trolling of certain individuals (again not you, just speaking generally here). I have no issues with people not liking WD or certain aspects of it, as I've said its far from perfect, but I do take issue when I see people who I know aren't fans of WD and who do not particiapte in this thread other than to post a random troll post every once an awhile (again not you ).

 

I just felt like I was the bad guy all of a sudden, for sharing my experience.
I use Kaspersky now. And even if it slows my VPN down for no reason, I like being told about things more.

 

And yet you seem to be piling on all kinds of 3rd-party antimalware solutions for testing or whatever the purpose is. I'm not surprised you're encountering problems with WD; you've probably contaminated your system with leftover garbage from these products, and they're interfering with WD and possibly other programs and the O/S as well. I count no fewer than six programs you've mentioned using in the last two pages of this thread alone:

1. Emsisoft
2. ESET
3. MalwareBytes
4. Hitman Pro
5. Kaspersky
6. ConfigureDefender

Unless you've done some clean installs between installing all these programs, the leftovers could be causing you grief.

 

And all of them are On-Demand scanner without installation. (Except Kaspersky, which is my AM now) And the cause of the issue you're hinting at was ConfigureDefender. (PARTLY!!!)
All of this is what you would know if you would have followed the actual thread.

EDIT: I keep editing my posts too much...

 

Portable EEK leaves a driver behind, if you used 'direct disk access' scan.

You have to use their dedicated tool to remove it. Or do it manually.
Many portable scanners use similar technique.

 

Ok, but this is not the issue nor of any importance here. Thank you for telling me, though. I need to take a closer look at my drivers next.

 

It's a registry reference, screenshot is form Autoruns.

 

I never used the direct access feature and the driver is not installed. I found two drivers from MetaDefender though. They are gone now. (Used Kernel Mode Drivers Manager)
I take a look at what autoruns says once in a while. The program is pure joy. WD is too, sometimes. But I really don't like it anymore.

 

Okay sorry I missed that, I don't have a month of Sundays to read through the entire thread but my fault regardless. That said, it seems like a conflict of sorts is the root of the problem. I wanted a natural segue into advising it's better to spend an extra $100, or whatever it might be for some, on the Pro version of Windows rather than spending it on additional 3rd-party security programs, and use the additional features such as Group Policy settings to harden the O/S and enjoy a much smoother and hassle free experience-completely free of malware no less. I have numerous WD settiings, among others, configured with Group Policy so no need for ConfigureDefender or other so called anti-malware products.

 

haha ok
I have Pro and configured some things in GP, Windows update, Bitlocker, crypto stuff... but never actually thought about doing that to WD. It's just something I never associated with an AM program. *shrug*
I looked through them. Most of the things are very basic. Stuff that I would expect in the WD settings. I'll take a closer look. What can I use together with Kaspersky? Obviously scans are still scheduled, but what about the GP things?

 

Windows Defender is a bad choice for people who use Internet download managers and 3rd party zip tools, because they usually remove the Mark of the Web from the files. And then Windows SmartScreen won't work right, and Windows Defender is built to work together with SmartScreen.
But for the average user who downloads the regular way, WD has an advantage: it can apply Windows SmartScreen even to the final payload. 3rd party AVs can't do this. They need to rely on signature detection, heuristics, etc, to detect a trojan's final payload.
Also, WD has better implementation of AMSI, because Microsoft doesn't reveal to 3rd party companies all the ins and outs of this Windows technology.
In short, WD has disadvantages for pirates, and advantages for other people.