Windows 10: Avast vs Defender?

For a very long time (over 8 years) I have used Avast Anti-Virus as my main protection on the computer. Defender in Windows 7 was just not mature yet. I will admit that I know little about how good or bad Defender has become, but since I have been having real issues with my computer, I have not installed Avast yet, and am relying upon Defender. Is my trust misplaced or has Defender matured into a full featured protective suite? Thanks.

:)

 

Avast vs windows defender

It is difficult to say which Anti-Malware product is the best and it is very subjective It depends on what people expect from a product , their experience , location, local support and so on.

I have been working with Windows Defender and other Microsoft Anti-Malware products and non-Microsoft products . Based on personal experience, Windows Defender is doing a great job , especially in Windows 10.

 

Avast vs windows defender

I felt windows 10 defender is much better than avast because it is super sensitive. It will not allow you to install itune if you are using apple product for sync.

 

Hmm, Windows Defender works fine on my Win7 system and as a back up to my win10 system. No quarks yet among a few other random crap that windows 10 seems to throw at me. I don't feel that it's ready to defend against big threats and I do feel you, should use something else. Never use both at once unless you; know what your doing, as they will fight with each other. I know this from experience's I've had in the past. I leave the door in this thread open to others who may be more into Windows Defender then I.

P.S: WELCOME TO THE WinTen FORUMS!!

L

 

I too was a long time Avast user until recently when I decided to drop it in favour of Defender.
So far I have had no problems with Defender, and it certainly seems to me to be a lot better in Windows 10 then when I last used it in Windows 7.
And it is free! *Biggrin

 

Antivirus is a give and take situation. The more features it has, the more performance it takes. Defender is a very minimally intrusive anti-virus. No, it doesn't have a virus scanning firewall or many of the other high end, and performance sucking features.. but it has worked fine for me since it first came out, back in the XP days, back when it was called something else (can't remember the name at the moment).

Yes, it's matured to include anti-malware. It used to have a more restrictive definition of what a virus was, and malware often did not fit that definition, especially PUP's and what not. That has largely changed.

No, it will never be able to detect 0-second vulnerabilities, but it's good enough for my needs. Combine that with intelligent browsing, and I haven't been infected in years.

Something you have to remember is that many anti-virus makers intentionally poison the pool, so they can claim to detect stuff others don't. Kapersky has been caught doing this on several occasions. No, they don't write deliberate malware, but they write "proof of concept" viruses and then claim to detect it.

 

I've found that recently Avast is becoming too bloated and intrusive. While its a good detector it adds a layer between you and your network which I don't like.

I use Defender now in conjunction with Malwarebytes so should be covered.

 

Like you I use defender + malwarebytes. Malwarebytes finds pups that defender is not designed to find.
https://support.malwarebytes.com/cus...ted-?b_id=6438
There are many people that encounter bsod related to antivirus programs (avast, bitdefender, malwarebytes, etc). Never seen one related to defender. Defender may produce os problems instead.

 

Murphcid,

Yes, Windows defender [in Windows 10] is a full anti-malware utility and it has improved significantly this year - see AVTestOrg results. Right-click the sideways arrow next to the Windows defender entry and you will see more details of the test results - its main [relative] drawbacks are aspects of system loading [application download, installation, launch] but its malware detection rates & absence of false positives are excellent.

Denis

 

I agree, I used it for quite some time and about 2 months ago I installed the free version on my Wife's PC which still has Vista. It bogged it down so much it was pathetic. I tried to remove it using Avast Clear and it did nothing. I had to manually hack everything to do with Avast out of her registry which took quite a bit of time. She now has Comondo free which works very well.

 

Since your above av-test report Windows Defender has been updated in the Creator version, and is now Windows Security Centre.

Security improvements have been made in the Creator update, plus even more security will be added when the"Fall Creator" is released later this year.

 

The Windows defender UI has been subsumed into the Windows defender security centre UI but Windows defender itself continues to be the Windows 10 anti-malware utility. The Windows defender security centre app is a view of Windows defender & several related features.

Its log file remains at "%UserProfile%\AppData\Local\Temp\MpCmdRun.log"

[You can, if you wish, still see the old UI at "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Defender\MSASCui.exe"]

Denis

 

I had been a long time user of WebRoot but uninstalled it from my Win 10 PC and it's strictly Win Defender and Malwarebytes there. I feel quite safe with that set up.

The new (general release this fall) Exploit Protection is installed in Insider build 232 and it is quite ambitious.

 

I was starting to get annoyed at the Avast nag-ware features which tell me to clean my pc, etc. Granted its free, but the requests to buy stuff get a little old after a while.

 

This was my experience with a Windows defender false positive:

Windows defender reported that it found malware on one of my computers and offered to remove it.
The offer was accepted and windows defender ran for many hours and failed to remove what it had identified as malware.
Windows defender never found malware on a quick scan.
The windows defender full scan was performed again and it again found malware.
Another offer to remove it was accepted and it ran for hours and was unable to remove what it had identified as malware.
Malwarebytes was then used and if found no malware.
The Microsoft web site has a link in which you can post a suspected file for analysis.
The size of this file though exceed the limits and I was never able to find a way to submit the information to Microsoft directly.
With Malwarebytes I had communicated and they reported to me that what windows defender found was a false positive.
They said that over time Microsoft would update their definitions and this would be fixed.
Ten months later I ran a full scan and WIndows defender as a full scan still found malware.
The false positive was not fixed for more than 10 months.
What it found as malware was on HP computers in the partition. This file was too large for the submission.
On Microsoft technet this information was submitted.
They knew immediately the problem with the false positive related to HP computers.
Within days the false positive was fixed.
Running Windows defender in full scan no longer found any malware.