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That’s uncommon less than a quarter of the scores I track come in below the Advanced level. Windows Defender earns the basic Standard certification in both of those tests. I follow three of this lab's many tests, and Microsoft appears in the latest report for two of those. Those that do more than the minimum can rate Advanced or Advanced+. A product that passes a test gets Standard certification one that doesn't pass gets the label Tested. But then, all the products I follow take home AAA certification this time around, except for a lone AA for Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus.Īntivirus products don't receive a numeric score or letter grade from the researchers at AV-Comparatives. Windows Defender aces this one, earning AAA certification.
London-based SE Labs awards five levels of certification, AAA, AA, A, B, and C. Several other products likewise earn a perfect score in the latest test, among them Avast, AVG, and Kaspersky Security Cloud Free.
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In the latest report, Windows Defender takes the full six points in all three categories, for a perfect 18 points. An antivirus can earn up to six points for each of these, for a maximum total of 18. Security experts at AV-Test Institute rate antivirus programs on three criteria, Protection, Performance, and Usability. Its scores run the gamut from perfection to failure. At present, all four of the labs that I follow include Windows Defender in their regular test reports.
Some years ago, Windows Defender routinely earned truly rotten scores from the independent testing labs, coming in below zero at times. Most competing products make scheduling scans much easier. If you want to schedule a scan, you'll have to dig into the unwieldy, threatening Task Scheduler app. You won't find that functionality in Windows Defender, though. However, many users like to schedule an occasional full scan for added security. It's true that after that initial full scan, real-time protection should handle any new attacks.
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If you feel that you still have a malware problem after a regular scan, give the offline scan a try. That also means it runs before any malware processes load, so in theory, the malware is defenseless. Designed to handle persistent malware that defends itself against removal by a normal scan, this scan reboots the system and runs before Windows fully loads. In addition to the expected Quick, Full, and Custom scan options, Windows Defender offers what it calls Offline Scan. A repeat scan finished in less than 15 minutes. That’s better than the current average of 66 minutes and vastly better than its previous time of almost two hours. In testing, a full scan finished in just under an hour. Where many other antivirus products put a big Scan button front and center, Windows makes you work to even find the on-demand scan choices. Windows Defender focuses mainly on real-time protection. I'll go into detail about these features below.
Clicking one of those icons (or its corresponding item in the left-rail menu) brings up a page for the selected security features. The main Windows Security screen displays large icons for virus protection and six additional feature collections. When you click the Defender icon in the notification area, it opens the full Windows Defender Security Center.
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Windows Defender differs from other free antivirus tools in that there's no installation required it's already present. Windows Defender does a decent job, too, but the best competitors, including free ones, do even better. By making sure that every Windows installation has protection against malware, Microsoft helps contribute to a kind of herd immunity.
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As soon as you install a third-party solution, it goes into suspended animation to avoid conflict.
Windows Defender turns on to protect systems that have no other antivirus. In Windows 10, Windows Defender Security Center not only protects against all types of malware, but it also manages numerous other security features. Microsoft’s history of providing antivirus protection goes all the way back to DOS, but it’s never seemed to harm the third-party antivirus industry.