Battle Windows Defender vs Bitdefender Free vs Kaspersky Free (2019)

brod56

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Feb 13, 2017
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I already have an opinion on this matter, but would like to hear yours too. It's always a popular comparison, and it would be great to take a look at it as of early 2019 in my opinion.

Most important points of comparison:
1. Perfomance impact - ram usage, internet speeds, disk speeds
2. Cloud protection and/or behavior blocker - reliability, speed
3. Offline signatures - static file detection, website filtering, false positives
4. Customization - useful settings
5. Privacy - telemetry, use of personal data
 
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Kuttz

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You can rule out WD because of its performance impact and mediocre protection. KFA and BD Free both are terrific AVs. When BD Free is slightly less heavy on system KFA on the other hand offers stronger protection especially its ability in detecting new threats.
 

brod56

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You can rule out WD because of its performance impact and mediocre protection. KFA and BD Free both are terrific AVs. When BD Free is slightly less heavy on system KFA on the other hand offers stronger protection especially its ability in detecting new threats.
I don't consider the WD performance mediocre, specially when tweaked with Andy Ful's Configure Defender. I may agree on the performance impact though.
 

permar4

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Jul 23, 2017
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I do not doubt the effectiveness of WD well optimized, but I think it is not optimal that something that comes in millions of computers by default, needs to be configured with a 3º tool.

Even so, the three options seem to me valid for the average user, maybe for someone without many security guidelines would recommend kaspersky, but for someone who takes other security measures, such as most here.

I would recommend the one that causes less impact on the computer, the problem is that I don't know what that is... each site or person says a different thing.
 

brod56

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I do not doubt the effectiveness of WD well optimized, but I think it is not optimal that something that comes in millions of computers by default, needs to be configured with a 3º tool.
I absolutely agree. Options like PUP blocking should be accessible in the advanced settings of the Windows Defender app.

I would recommend the one that causes less impact on the computer, the problem is that I don't know what that is... each site or person says a different thing.
I would also like to see an actual comparison of performance between these products. Between fanboys' opinions and TPSC's flawed tests inside a VM, I'm yet to find an impartial test.
 

Evjl's Rain

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I don't consider the WD performance mediocre, specially when tweaked with Andy Ful's Configure Defender. I may agree on the performance impact though.
after tweaking with andy's tool, I felt WD even heavier than default due to extra processing in the cloud and locally
just upgraded 3 old PCs to SSDs and cleanly installed Windows 10 1803. WD slowed down everything like a turtle. I had to disable WD during installation of essential softwares and saw immediate gain in speed. Then, I installed kaspersky free with some performance tweaks, the PCs ran a lot a lot smoother
I consider kaspersky internet security and KTS with application control = heavy, though
KAV (Paid), KFA and KSCF are much lighter because they don't have application control

WD doesn't slow down much if users only browse the web, play some games and open MS office but it will definitely slow down if users run heavy tasks which are disk-intensive (copy, install new apps, export files, process data, develop heavy apps,...)

for me, the best AV which are balance between speed and protection (after all tweaks, not default) is Avast but many people don't like it due to bugs and privacy problems

in this list, I definitely choose kaspersky free because WD, BD free for me are not good enough. Tested all of them in the hub and had the results
 

brod56

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So I did my own tests running in my laptop and the results surprised me - Kaspersky Free seems to affect system performance the least!

Notes:
- WD: defaults + PUP protection + Network Protection
- BD: defaults, promotional messages off
- KFA: defaults
 

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