Windows Defender gets 100% in AV-Comparatives "Real-World Protection Test" Feb. 2018

[Andy Ful]

There is also another Graph from AV-C when it comes to Microsoft Defender.

And things are not that favorable...

Defender scores not well only when copying executables and installing applications. I would add also full scan impact on CPU usage. But, for an average user, those issues ane not so important. Some users also complained about long displaying time in Explorer when opening the folders with many executables, but this seems to be hardware/software dependent.

 

[Andy Ful]

...
The truth of the matter is that despite Microsoft's big Windows 10 security efforts over the past five years it remains behind the industry and the typical user is better off, for a whole lot of reasons, either installing a 3rd-party security solution...

The statement in red would be hard to defend, because installing third-party AV on Windows 10 has its own issues:

1. Some advanced AV features often do not work as expected after updates.
2. They can break Windows Updates.
3. They can sometimes break the system after Windows Updates.

It is rather the personal choice. I had all the above issues (and there are some more), so I prefer building the security based on Windows Defender. One can easily extend this security via Windows policies or AppGuard, or ReHIPS, or good anti-exe etc. There are also some promising NoVirusThanks applications in development.

 

[509322]

The statement in red would be hard to defend, because installing third-party security solutions on Windows 10 has its own issues:

1. Some features often do not work as expected after updates.
2. They can break Windows Updates.
3. They can sometimes break the system after Windows Updates.

It is rather the personal choice. I had all the above issues (and there are some more), so I prefer building the security based on Windows Defender.

Windows Defender, Exploit Guard and the rest are full of bugs. There is little to no documentation. What documentation there is, is not sufficient for a home user that needs step-by-step "How To" documentation.

Yes, but you are not a typical user and have the knowledge and experience needed to tweak Windows 10 native security. Typical users cannot handle it. And that is the big problem. Average Joe is not going to put forth the effort to figure out what is required to tweak Windows security. Hell, even security soft geeks have a difficult time doing it.

Windows 10 updates are broken all by themselves.

Our lab routinely tests 3rd-party security softs, and we have never seen any of them break Windows 10 updates. In the past two years, I have seen it posted on the web once.

For the Average Joe, they are better off either with a 3rd-party solution or just moving to Chromebook. An entire industry is built on the fact that Microsoft has promoted 3rd-party security solutions for decades. Microsoft still says Windows Defender is a bare minimum protection. It's only at the volume licensing level where Microsoft isn't saying that because they are trying to sell their Windows Defender ATP - which from what I can tell ATP is a flop.

For guys like us, safe users, Windows Defender is sufficient. For a family with kids, meaning high risk users, Windows Defender is not sufficient. Families are better off with an internet security suite. High-risk users generally are better off with something other than Windows Defender. That's always been the case.

 

[Andy Ful]

...
Windows 10 updates are broken all by themselves.

Our lab routinely tests 3rd-party security softs, and we have never seen any of them break Windows 10 updates. In the past two years, I have seen it posted on the web once.
...

I am not using third-party security software (except ShadowDefender) from 2 years on 3 computers and all Windows Updates was installed without problems (blocking some system executables via SRP can rarely break updates).
AV vendors admitted several times (in the past two years) the serious issues with their software after updates on Windows 10 (Kaspersky, Avast, Comodo, etc.).

 

[509322]

An Av-c review thanks... but rather i believe my enemy than this joke
Sad to see even microsoft came into this sump..paying and getting awarded TOP .Whats that 100% block...how can they even give those ratings to fool the users..
DR WEB is absolutely correct...
AV-C = JOKE
Just check their top list Panda Avira Mcafee... G data and Dr web are the only 2 vendors who stay away from this Garbage...Expecting Kaspersky to exit as well.

Kaspersky makes a ton of money from AV-C so why would they leave AV-C ? G-DATA left AV-C precisely because it couldn't make a ton of money from AV-C.

 

[Mahesh Sudula]

Kaspersky makes a ton of money from AV-C so why would they leave AV-C ? G-DATA left AV-C precisely because it couldn't make a ton of money from AV-C.

Rather correct your sentence as kaspersky have the money to get into that sump..but not G data...Kaspersky doesnt even care about their tests and results..
Kaspersky and G data never make money from these SPAMMERS...rather customer pays for them by reaching themselves
Thats the power of K and G...They are the ALL ROUNDERS

 

[509322]

Rather correct your sentence as kaspersky have the money to get into that sump..but not G data...Kaspersky doesnt even care about their tests and results..
Kaspersky and G data never make money from these JOKES...rather customer pays for them by reaching themselves
Thats the power of K and G...They are the ALL ROUNDERS

Eugene Kaspersky most certainly does care about AV-Comparative test results. And he will continue to pay for the tests as long as his product will place at the top. Kaspersky profits immensely from all the AV lab tests in which it participates. Eugene Kaspersky is shrewd. He makes sure he participates in lab tests that place his products in the top three and does not participate in ones where they will not place within the top three.

G DATA has the money, but stopped participating in AV-C because it was not happy with its placement in the test results back in 2013. So, likewise, a shrewd move on G DATA's part because their placement was not flattering or acceptable to them.

 

[212eta]

Defender scores not well only when copying executables and installing applications. I would add also full scan impact on CPU usage. Some users also complained about long displaying time in Explorer when opening the folders with many executables, but this seems to be hardware/software dependent.

The millions of WD Users are ok with it because they don't know what their computer can perform like without WD.
I can tell because I know my laptop inside out, I have a fast laptop, all SSDs, not a single HDD in it.

Let me just give you one example.

I have a software folder that I place all my setup EXE files in AND folders of portable apps, like CCleaner, Revo Uninstaller Pro, etc.

Each of those folders has a custom *.ico icon that I assigned to make them stand out easily.

If I have Windows Defender on, every time I access that folder, the icons would load in slow motion, one by one,
because WD keeps scanning the same files again and again every time let alone how slow it does it.

With ANY other AV, the icons and folders load instantly. Go figure.

Other than that folder example, I feel a whole drag on the system during normal day to day operations, installing large apps,
like Adobe CC Suite, takes twice as long with WD enabled!

Oh and before you tell me my computer is slow, here are the specs, if this can't handle such basic tasks with breeze if WD is on it,
then I wonder how your so called average joe is ok with his system's performance.

MSI GT73VR Titan Pro-425 | i7-7820HK | Kingston 2400 MHz. 64GB DDR4 RAM | GeForce GTX 1080 | Dynaudio System with Nahimic 2 Sound Technology | Killer™Wireless-AC 1535 | Chi Mei N173HHE-G32 17.3" FHD 120 Hz/5ms Screen [G-SYNC] | 2x Samsung 960 PRO 2TB + 850 EVO 1TB + 850 EVO 4TB + Sandisk 512GB Extreme PRO SD Card | Windows 10 Pro

Source

 

[Andy Ful]

...all their ratings are a joke..its all money ..

That can be true in theory, but I cannot see any proof, and I doubt you have one. For me, those tests are reasonable within the limits of the adopted methodology. They show little about which AV is the best. But, they show that the reasonable person can be hardly infected while browsing the Internet and installing legitimate software. The fact that many people are infected, shows that they do not always behave reasonable, like my son, who installed a cracked soft with the file patch setup.jse (downloaded in the compressed archive).

 

[legendcampos]

Kaspersky makes a ton of money from AV-C so why would they leave AV-C ? G-DATA left AV-C precisely because it couldn't make a ton of money from AV-C.

So I like the tests of effitas at least they do tests with various situations and besides they are more transparent in their methodology. I think it's the only one who gets more confidence even sure that is there's money involved...
I usually test antivirus in every situation like pup for example and I know which is good and which is bad.. And I see that their results show exactly what happens in my tests. For example I know that Kaspersky is not good against pup and their test shows this..

 

[509322]

Yes, many @Lockdown posts are very critical about Microsoft practices and Defender. But, maybe both of you like to keep some balance. You over the haters, and @Lockdown over the fanboys.

There is an entire industry that has been built upon and makes money from exposing and criticizing Microsoft. Gee, I wonder why that is possible ? Because there are literally millions upon millions of people having bad experiences with Microsoft. So I'd appreciate it if people would stop trying to make me out to be a Microsoft basher for simply telling it like it is.

 

[509322]

As long as Windows users have the freedom to download whatever they want, all "Antivirus software" will be crap.

The freedom to download stuff is not the issue. The point is that Windows Defender is less than 3rd-party security solutions. Microsoft itself has promoted Windows Defender as a bare minimum security solution for decades and encourages users to install 3rd-party solutions.

 

[Andy Ful]

AV-Comparatives: Real-World Protection Test - February 2018

The issue with opening/sorting the folders containing many executables was tested on MT and was absent even on the systems with poor resources in Virtual Machine, so it is probably hardware/software dependent. The issue with slow displaying icons is another problem, on my computer with the folder containing 230 executables (12 GB) all icons are visible after 3 minutes.
Post edited - I messed up opening/sorting folder issue with slow icon displaying issue.

 

[ForgottenSeer 58943]

As long as Windows users have the freedom to download whatever they want, all "Antivirus software" will be crap.

Herein is the solution really. One of the reasons out of the box Linux and ChromeOS are more secure is repositories that set limitations on what can be downloaded and installed. ChromeOS pushes this farther and simply limits you to not installing anything on the OS for the most part and severely limiting user-space control. Windows has way more problems than the installation aspect so it's likely going to take a abandonment of their foundation and something entirely new to fix it.

 

[Aleeyen]

Will you pay also for breaking it? I can wait.

Yeah, we will have a secret understanding.

 

[Deleted member 65228]

Quick get to cover!

Someone posted an AV-C test!

We need to start building back-garden bunkers to run into ASAP for when an AV test is posted on a thread

 

[Andy Ful]

Quick get to cover!

Someone posted an AV-C test!

We need to start building back-garden bunkers to run into ASAP for when an AV test is posted on a thread

I had to use Wikipedia to understand what ASAP means.
Also, it is always fun for me to discuss AV results (especially Defender's) with test lovers and haters.

 

[enaph]

None security application can replace well educated and conscious user.
For systems with multiple users (especially where one of the users is a child) there's only one option - LUA and complete lockdown.

 

[RoboMan]

"Take these tests with a grain of salt" guideline should be literally followed. It's OK to look at these tests, but only as a reference to know which products to tests by yourself

 

[509322]

Herein is the solution really. One of the reasons out of the box Linux and ChromeOS are more secure is repositories that set limitations on what can be downloaded and installed. ChromeOS pushes this farther and simply limits you to not installing anything on the OS for the most part and severely limiting user-space control. Windows has way more problems than the installation aspect so it's likely going to take a abandonment of their foundation and something entirely new to fix it.

On Windows the user doesn't even have to download anything to get their system smashed. At its most basic level, just turn your PC on and do some stuff is all that is required. No downloading or installing of programs required.

Once Chromebook reaches the tipping point where the criminals find it profitable, that's it. It's security advantage is gone.

Google's atrocious Google Store and the great wisdom to include Android on Chromebook will be the undoing of ChromeOS.