I am more curious to see if anyone puts their money where their mouth is and steps forward to justify and defend Microsoft and Windows Defender on this one - since there is a large contingent here that more or less keeps saying default WIndows and Windows Defender are sufficient. Well that's just isn't true.
I'll take a stab at it.
Quite simply MS doesn't have "banking protection" built into WD. One thing I didn't see with the test is which browser did they use? If they didn't use Edge, maybe MS has that capability in Edge not WD. I don't know for sure, but it's something worth noting. Another thing to remember is that when it comes to W10 and WD, MS doesn't have all their security as part of WD. What I mean is, if you take web traffic scanning as an example, WD doesn't have this in the traditional sense. It does have network protection that you can turn on, but it"s web traffic scanning is really smart screen built into Edge, not WD. Furthermore, many of these protections require some hooking into the browser and from what I can see MS doesn't hook into the browsers. Both Google and Mozilla hate this as well, hence why you have seen them recently talk about blocking the way programs hook into their browsers.
I've been using WD for a long time now and have remained malware free. Like it or not WD has come along ways on the protection front. All this banking protection stuff is just snake oil anyways. While there are still keyloggers and such, hacker tend to focus more on infecting servers, rather than individuals, as they will get more bang for their buck. Just as both you and I have said, if the server is compromised, it doesn't matter how much protection you have.
Quite frankly I don't stress about test results, nor do I stress about getting infected. Personally I think there is too much fear and paranoia about security to begin with. Does that mean WD can't improve, sure it can, all products can, but it doesn't mean it can't do a good job in the real world. Let's look at it this way, many other products scored well in this test, but when it comes to stealing your info, all it takes is one to get missed by any product. At that point it doesn't matter how well it did in a test, it still missed it and your data still got compromised.
All in all, your habits are just as important than anything. IMHO, people aren't getting infected left, right and center, as much as some may think. Unless you start going to doggy sites, clicking on every link/ad, opening every email attachment, etc..., you probably won't get infected. Keep everything up to date, only use programs you need, use a password manager and where can 2FA, chances are you will be good.
I know people still have this hatred towards WD for what ever reason, some of which is legit, i'm not denying that, believe me, I know full well that it's not perfect and it has it warts, but I don't think it's no where near as bad as some make it out to be. Quite frankly and I mean this in a very respectful way, essentially and indirectly calling out people who use and recommend WD as fanboys and painting them as stupid/wrong is just plain ignorant. I'm sorry, but people are free to use what they like and as I've said above, like it or not, WD has come a long ways on the protection front. No one is forcing anybody to use a particular product, pick and choose the one works best for you.
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