The Steel Guitar Forum

For Windows 10 / Windows 11 is there any reason to download free Anti-Virus / Anti-Malware software?

At one time, the Windows software and the free software seemed to be fighting with each other.

"You're the bad guy!"

"No, you're the bad guy!"

"Oh no. You are the bad guy!"

They used to keep me up at night, with all their fighting!





Any thoughts?

~Lee

IHMO, for Windows 10 and 11, the bundled Microsoft Defender has gotten good enough to be your one and only. If you have anything else on board, they will fight and try to turn each other off.

I have been running a combination of Malwarebytes and Windows Defender on my Windows 10 PC since it was a Windows 7 PC. I built it in 2018. I have a perpetual license for Malwarebytes and can transfer it from an old machine to a new one. It is updated automatically and gets along well with Defender. The best part of MB is Browser Guard, which optionally embeds into all of the major web browsers. With Browser Guard installed, I am protected against malicious coding on web pages. It blocks known dangerous sites from loading and blocks outbound beacons leading to known bad web locations.

I don't get much out of Defender itself. It scans daily and reports that nothing bad was found. Its best component is a firewall, which although rudimentary, is better than none at all.

I too use the built in Windows Defender and like Wiz a perpetual licensed Malwarebytes.

Windows Defender/Malwarebytes is what most Techies I know use.

Is Bitdefender in any way comparable with Malwarebytes?

Ian Rae wrote:Is Bitdefender in any way comparable with Malwarebytes?

I found this useful comparison of Bitdefender vs Malwarebytes.

The only other antivirus I've used during the last 20 years was Trend Micro. I switched to Malwarebytes around 2008.

Thanks for your replies. I had given up!

~Lee

Lee Baucum wrote:Thanks for your replies. I had given up!

~Lee

When it comes to modern anti-virus programs, most are almost equally effective at stopping known threats. The differences only come to the forefront when they encounter a previously unknown strain. Viruses are coded programs. Their authors have to constantly alter parts of their viral codes to evade signature based scanners. The more advanced detections are based upon a combination of signatures and heuristics, which are behavioral detections. Some malware strains try to mask their payload delivery until any malware scanners have finished looking them over and cleared them to run. The malicious codes are then downloaded from cloud servers, or compromised personal websites.

This followup detection process is so complicated that it just isn't prudent to install free anti-malware or anti-virus.