[RudeCurve]

I just switched from one of the best anti spyware/malware programs to Windows Defender...why? Because it's free!

I don't know how good WD is but it can't be that bad can it? Anybody have any experience with WD? I kinda like it, it has a very simple interface.

[digitalwanderer]

My only experience with it is disabling it on fresh installs.

[ShaidarHaran]

Slap yourself.

Defender is a POS.

MBAM and Super Anti Spyware are the only anti-malware programs I'd ever bother with. AV I use Avira and MWAV.

[RudeCurve]

...after slapping myself a few times and banging my head against the wall, I just uninstalled it and downloaded MBAM and SAS.

[Grall]

Windows defender is incredibly, amazingly, fantastically, abysmally slow at scanning.

I've no idea how effective it is at finding malware since I've not had any since.....ever, actually.

In fact, I do believe a C64 armed with a tape deck would scan files faster than windows defender does on my quadcore i7-powered, intel SLC solid state drive-equipped PC.

[ShaidarHaran]

lol, good move

[FrameBuffer]

it must just be me but Ive found that MS Morro (Security Essentials) has not only been fast but finds a greater amount of mal/spyware threats with a lot less false positives than other alternatives. Was never a fan of Defender however MSE (beta) has performed flawlessly (so far).

[Grall]

Never heard that name, is that their much-talked-about new virus killing software?

Regardless, I have a hard time believing a piece of MS software would perform better than the veterans of this niche of the software market. I doubt Eset and those people have much to worry about, at least in the short run.

Had this still been the early days of the 21st century MS would doubtlessly try to commandeer the virus scanner market like they did the browser market by bundling their - initially very crappy - solution, refine it iteratively, and when it performed well enough it would simply starve the competition to death.

Then when every other company had either been crushed or reduced to insignificance, they could stop throwing money and resources at developing their software and simply coast along for as long as possible...

However, lucky for us those days are now long gone. Governments and other organizations are aware of MS's tricks, and have already leafed through their dirty playbook. This won't work again; if MS attempts to bundle a virus scanner with their OSes they're going to get sued again.

[RudeCurve]

MS purchased a couple of AV software companies awhile back.

http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft-to-bu...3-1015096.html

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news...le.php/3469991

[suryad]

Ah so what is MBAM and SAS may I ask?

[RudeCurve]

Originally Posted by suryad

Ah so what is MBAM and SAS may I ask?

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

http://www.superantispyware.com/

[Mize]

MBAM and SAS have recovered heavily infected machines (xp) that nothing else could. I personally run Linux clients and have a machine dedicated to running Untangle (also Playon for Netflix, Hulu and Amazon VOD for my consoles) and it seems to catch about everything for the wonderful price of free...if you have a machine that can dedicate a VM to a firewall.

[chavvdarrr]

In Spybot I believe and pray