Windows 10 [2014 - 2017]

[Cyan]

I've never seen Defender stop anything and I have seen, for instance, Kaspersky stop real threats which Defender did not stop.

But yeah, antivirus can open up a bigger attack surface but imho it is only really a big deal if you are being targeted. And if you are being targeted and the attacker has vast resources and they know about your config, you are probably screwed anyway because they will probably have access to 0-day exploits for your OS/AV/browser etc.

Kaspersky is very popular and I kinda like it. I use Defender and it works ok for me, but I complement it with an initial analysis in Virustotal.com and then there is also Malware Bytes and Spybot in my PC, which aren't resident in memory, to analyse stuff, and I am doing fine.

If you want to check the not so secure sites, you can also use a virtual machine.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I've never seen Defender stop anything and I have seen, for instance, Kaspersky stop real threats which Defender did not stop.

But yeah, antivirus can open up a bigger attack surface but imho it is only really a big deal if you are being targeted. And if you are being targeted and the attacker has vast resources and they know about your config, you are probably screwed anyway because they will probably have access to 0-day exploits for your OS/AV/browser etc.

I've had Defender stop quite a few things when I let one of my friends use my computer. A LOT of things from the web as well as a few things they tried to download. They knew better than to un-quarantine the detected items on my machine. Needless to say I now understand why that person's computer keeps getting infected even though they claim to be very careful.

I've used Microsoft Defender as my only AV since Vista came out (when it was called Microsoft Security Essentials and was a separate download), and haven't had an infection during that time. Prior to that I had used Avast, another good free one that I can't remember ATM, Kapersky and something else that I couldn't remember.

The problem and the reason I stopped using them was that in the case of Avast and the other free one, I'd been using them since they were lightweight and didn't use overly much CPU at first. But later releases got more and more bloated making me want to keep them running less and less. Which is what prompted me to try out MSE after I'd read a security review on it.

I haven't regretted that decision. No AV is perfect. So there's always a chance I might still get something. But that chance would exist regardless of whether I was paying for AV or just using Defender. Combined with safe browsing habits, I've been OK thus far.

The biggest thing is to never assume that your AV, firewall, etc. are going to keep you safe. They just help. You still need to practice safe computing and web browsing habits.

Regards,
SB

 

[Albuquerque]

If you want to check the not so secure sites, you can also use a virtual machine.

I've used Microsoft Defender as my only AV since Vista came out (when it was called Microsoft Security Essentials and was a separate download), and haven't had an infection during that time. <snip> The biggest thing is to never assume that your AV, firewall, etc. are going to keep you safe. They just help. You still need to practice safe computing and web browsing habits.

These two are really where I'm at. I started using MSE back in the WinXP days, and even started actively converting other family members who were struggling with McAfee or Symantec at the time.

With newer and better processors and cheaper memory, virtual machines are REALLY the way to go for someone who is computer literate. There are scant few websites I visit from my main OS (maybe ten total) and equally few applications I trust to install. Nearly everything else I do inside of a VM, most especially when I'm installing a piece of software from somewhere I'm not sure of OR software which I know comes with a bazillion tentacles Great example: the shoddy Java interface for my employer's Juniper SSL VPN solution I've only installed indie a VM because I hate the five other things it forces you to pull down and must then be continuously updated.

IF anyone has been paying attention, Win10 Pro and higher versions (sadly, not home... WTF Microsoft?) have Hyper-V built in, and they also support Direct3D acceleration within the VM itself -- even in windowed mode. You're not going to play a modern AAA title in the VM, but you can do quite a bit without ever leaving the guest. It's pretty legit.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

IF anyone has been paying attention, Win10 Pro and higher versions (sadly, not home... WTF Microsoft?) have Hyper-V built in, and they also support Direct3D acceleration within the VM itself -- even in windowed mode. You're not going to play a modern AAA title in the VM, but you can do quite a bit without ever leaving the guest. It's pretty legit.

Oh now that's interesting. I might have to give that a try, is it easy to use?

I'm with you on installing of applications. Especially ones that rely on other 3rd party packages. I really REALLY hate when there's an application I want to use, but it needs Java. I am NOT going to install Java on my machine. However, I wouldn't have a problem doing it in a VM.

Regards,
SB

 

[Albuquerque]

Yeah, if you're familiar at all with VMware Player, you'll absolutely figure out Hyper-V.

You'll have to install the role / feature first, so hit up the Control Panel and add/remove windows features. On Pro and upper SKUs, somewhere in the list will be Hyper-V. Check the box, wait a few seconds, it might have to pull something over the internet, and it requires a reboot. When you're done, just hit the Windows key and start typing "Hyper" -- you'll find the Hyper-V machine management console. Build a new VM, give it specs, and under the VM virtual display adapter properties will be options for enabling 3D and how much memory you wish to grant to the guest.

Use the inbuilt Windows 10 remote desktop connection executable (MSTSC.EXE) to actually make the connection to your guest VM, and 3D is now available

Edit: You know, I think there's one more step in there somewhere I'm forgetting .When I get home tonight, I'll go through my gaming rig and double-check. I want to say there's some global property in Hyper-V you have to set before the VM's can be granted 3D resource sharing. But I can't remember for sure...

Edit #2: Yeah, I found it, and there is another step. In the Hyper-V Manager console window, right-click on your computer in the left pane, and select Hyper-V Settings. There's a Physical GPUs section which has a drop-down and checkbox option. Drop down to find your GPU (if it isn't already top of the list) and then check the box for "Use this GPU with RemoteFX." You can now add a "RemoteFX 3D Video Adapter" to your VM's.

If you try this on a server OS like WIn2012, you have to install the remote desktop virtualization nonsense and then load it with CALs. On Win10 you can do it "for free."

 

[Davros]

what are your specs alby and whats the most demanding game youve ran
(would like to know if deus ex invisible war would be playable)

 

[Albuquerque]

what are your specs alby and whats the most demanding game youve ran
(would like to know if deus ex invisible war would be playable)

The gaming rig itself is Win10Pro sitting on an X79 + 4.5GHz 3930k platform, 32GB of quad channel 1666MHz 1T ram, a 1TB Sammy Evo 850 drive and a 980Ti at ~1460MHz/6GHz. The VM I run on this box is Win10 also, granted 2vCPU, 6GB of RAM, 128GB disk and 1GB of VRAM.

For grins, I pulled down Asphalt 8: Airborne from the Windows store (free) and it seems to play fine at the "extreme" preset. It uses a gamut of simple DX10-level features and plays at full screen 2560x1440 within the VM. I'm not sure what my most graphically demanding Steam game is, but I'm buying a few more new games tonight (thanks to my game recommendation thread) and I'll pull something down to test.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This is pretty crappy behaviour from MS - I launch Firefox asI've done many times before only this time I get an advert for Edge presented as a pop-up notification, "Edge is safer than Firefox. It catches 21% more malware yada yada". Along with adverts for their software in the notifications, I just find the whole intrusive push pretty repellent. It's not like I didn't try Edge first of all and reject it on sensible grounds of it being no good. Firefox has yet to put half a blue screen over the bottom of the browser preventing its operation. If I want to know what's the best browser, I'll go get independent advice and certainly won't take a product creator's word for it. I was happy to forgo using Kaspersky and use MS security based on advice from others, for example.

MS seem to be heading the wrong way IMO. Instead of endearing themselves to users by being awesome and giving us what we want, they seem to be trying to force themselves upon us. That has the opposite effect and I want them to stop.

 

[Davros]

The first evidence of ms's crappy behaviour I noticed was when the directx setup program
wanted to install the bing toolbar
Windows is not supposed to be add supported, what next will they start selling notifications to 3rd parties ?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

As a follow up for how crap and incompetent MS can be and why they get me so riled - the Edge notification was sat in the side bar. I pressed it out of curiosity and viewed their infographic in the Edge browser. It had an option to import bookmarks to make the transition easy. "Okay, I'll give it another go, although not setting it as my default." I import my bookmarks.

The favourites toolbar only tells me I can import bookmarks - it doesn't actually show any favourites and so doesn't actually work. Yet they have the audacity to interrupt my computer usage to use their broken browser??

Having another look, having looked on the web on how to access ones bookmarks because it isn't obvious from the interface (apparently a left-justifed text icon now means 'hub'), I can manually drag bookmarks from the imported 'bookmarks' folder to the 'favourites' folder and finally get correct functionality. Moving the links across during import is obviously too tricky.

 

[BRiT]

I cant recall if there was an option during import time on where to import the bookmarks to. That might not be an Edge thing but an IE11 thing. I honestly cant remember which it was for but I do remember having that choice. And yes, I do remember not liking how it imported things and had to manually organize things myself anyways.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Edge right now is total crap. I'm trying to force myself to use it at the moment instead of IE11, but OMG I do I dislike it so much. It's actually far worse than Chrome from a usability standpoint, and I didn't think you could get much worse than Chrome.

Just had to do my little mini rant there since someone else had something bad to say about Edge.

Going to give it a little more time, and then probably just go back to IE11. Wish I could go back to IE9. /sigh.

Regards,
SB

 

[hoom]

I've used Microsoft Defender as my only AV since Vista came out (when it was called Microsoft Security Essentials and was a separate download), and haven't had an infection during that time. Prior to that I had used Avast, another good free one that I can't remember ATM, Kapersky and something else that I couldn't remember.

Yeah I switched to MSE for the low overhead & after reading it doing very well in a comparison article.
It stopped me from getting sasser/conficker or whatever the current big threat was off a workmates' USB drive back in the day even after I'd first scanned the drive on an independent PC running I think Avast.
After that I've been recommending people to use MSE/Defender.

Working on helpdesk of a small ISP it amazed me how frequently customers would call with broken SSL, pretty close to 1:1 association with license expired Norton & very high % of it being fixed by the customer renewing their license/uninstalling Norton.
In my opinion that makes Norton essentially ransomware.
The dumb thing is that like lots of other malware, with broken SSL they can't actually use the built-in web-based license updater/links to the Norton website...

That said recommending Defender on the basis that 'MS is generally competent' per that article is a pretty weak reason.
MS has a fairly shocking history of bad security coding & had to buy in the tech that became MSE/Defender.

"Edge is safer than Firefox. It catches 21% more malware yada yada". Along with adverts for their software in the notifications, I just find the whole intrusive push pretty repellent.

Never had anything like this.
Probably because:
Settings -> System -> Notifications & actions -> Get tips, tricks and suggestions as you use Windows = Off
I also turned Microsoft Edge = Off in the list further down same screen.

 

[Cyan]

This is pretty crappy behaviour from MS - I launch Firefox asI've done many times before only this time I get an advert for Edge presented as a pop-up notification, "Edge is safer than Firefox. It catches 21% more malware yada yada". Along with adverts for their software in the notifications, I just find the whole intrusive push pretty repellent. It's not like I didn't try Edge first of all and reject it on sensible grounds of it being no good. Firefox has yet to put half a blue screen over the bottom of the browser preventing its operation. If I want to know what's the best browser, I'll go get independent advice and certainly won't take a product creator's word for it. I was happy to forgo using Kaspersky and use MS security based on advice from others, for example.

MS seem to be heading the wrong way IMO. Instead of endearing themselves to users by being awesome and giving us what we want, they seem to be trying to force themselves upon us. That has the opposite effect and I want them to stop.

I wouldn't recommend Edge to my worst enemy. I wanted to like it, tried it after the 1st time I installed Windows 10. But it reduced my productivity -reading PDF books and using programs at the same time to try programs etc-, has random hangs out of nowhere, it freezes for a long time sometimes. Only problem is that I had a good favourites list and they store them in the cloud, and I didn't know how to export them.

Good things about Edge... It stops pages that in other browsers manage to reload a window forever and ever when you close it. It also has a lot of patience and tries to load pages that in browsers like Chrome simply will never load if you are low on data on your phone if you are using your phone for tethering. Other than that, avoid it as if it was the devil.

I love Opera.

 

[Cyan]

Edge right now is total crap. I'm trying to force myself to use it at the moment instead of IE11, but OMG I do I dislike it so much. It's actually far worse than Chrome from a usability standpoint, and I didn't think you could get much worse than Chrome.

Just had to do my little mini rant there since someone else had something bad to say about Edge.

Going to give it a little more time, and then probably just go back to IE11. Wish I could go back to IE9. /sigh.

Regards,
SB

have you ever tried Opera? It is quite a nifty browser..

 

[Davros]

have you ever tried Opera?

it was great, now its just chrome with a different look

 

[Rikimaru]

Vivaldi browser is the successor to Opera 12.
I can not stand Chrome font rendering though.

 

[Cyan]

it was great, now its just chrome with a different look

Have you tried it recently? It's the fastest, at least for me, it has the best interface by faaaar of all the browsers I tried. The most visited sites interface is poetry for instance.

There are also little nice touches like clicking on the sound button of a tab -which shows if something is sounding in the background- allows you to stop the sound independently, that's an amazing feature.

And it's not a memory hog like Edge -though Edge has other deeper problems than just memory leaks-

Vivaldi browser is the successor to Opera 12.
I can not stand Chrome font rendering though.

so many thaaaaanks,downloading.

That explains why Opera didn't update at all ever since I downloaded it in my PC.

 

[Rikimaru]

That explains why Opera didn't update at all ever since I downloaded it in my PC.

Opera is still being updated (new one, based on Chrome).
But some members left and now making Vivaldi browser as spiritual successor to Opera 12 (based on Chrome too).

 

[Davros]

Have you tried it recently?

Yes its my main browser, but it's still not as good as opera used to be