It’s up there with the best third-party antivirus options. Its performance in the preceding months was comparably excellent - it has had perfect protection scores for almost two years. AV-TEST found that it caught 100% of the “widespread and prevalent malware” in January and February of 2022, along with 100% percent of the zero-day attacks in the same time frame. What if you want to use something else?įirst, let’s look at those scores. If you look at that antivirus comparison we linked to above, you’ll notice that Microsoft Defender - while excellent - has some stiff competition. But Is Microsoft Defender the Best Antivirus? What About Other Programs? So in short, yes: Microsoft Defender is good enough (as long as you couple it with a good anti-malware program, as we mentioned above - more on that in a minute). It was bad enough that we recommended something else, but it’s since bounced back, and now provides excellent protection. RELATED: Do I Really Need Antivirus If I Browse Carefully and Use Common Sense?įor a short while, Microsoft’s antivirus fell behind the others when it came to comparative antivirus software tests - way behind. Best of all, it doesn’t slow down your system, and mostly stays out of your way - which we can’t say about most other antivirus programs. Microsoft Defender comes built-in to Windows, and automatically scans programs you open, downloads new definitions from Windows Update, and provides an interface you can use for in-depth scans. When you install Windows 10 or Windows 11, you’ll have an antivirus program already running. So which ones should you use, and do you need to pay money for them? Let’s start with the first part of that combo: antivirus.

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