Bitdefender Says Windows Defender is Better Than Nothing
Windows Defender is better than nothing, says security firm Bitdefender.
Security firm Bitdefender recently conducted a study with Windows 8 and its built-in Windows Defender sotfware and discovered that they're able to defeat 85-percent of the 100 malware families used by most hackers in 2012. That's better than Windows 7's out-of-the-box security which reportedly only blocks 32-percent of the malware.
Bitdefender came to this conclusion after setting up a Windows 8 machine, with Windows Defender running, in a controlled test environment. The company infected the machine with "61 malware threats of 385 of the most popular malware samples."
According to the firm, one of the samples managed to sneak past Windows Defender, but crashed on execution. Another sample broke through Windows Defender and actually executed, but it was immediately blocked by User Account Control so no actual payload was unloaded.
"The malicious sample set consisted of the families of malware detected most frequently in the past six months by the Bitdefender Real-Time Virus Reporting System," the company said on Friday. "The malware that successfully bypassed Windows Defender was capable of granting backdoor access to the system, intercepting keystrokes, stealing online games credentials, and more."
When the company tested the Windows 8 machine without Windows Defender running, the results were naturally a lot worse. Of the 385 samples, 234 ran successfully, the company said, but an additional 138 samples just could not be executed on the machine for numerous unnamed reasons. Six e-threats executed but then crashed, and seven others launched but their payload was blocked by User Account Control.
"As a means of protecting a computer from viruses, data theft and other type of malware, Windows Defender is better than nothing," said Bitdefender Chief Security Strategist Catalin Cosoi. "But it’s not a whole lot better. Most of the popular antivirus [solutions] can do better. The conclusion is clear: using your PC without a security solution is extremely risky."
Naturally this bit of information comes from a security firm that provides a 3rd-party solution, so take the data with a grain of salt.

MSE (defender) is great stuff, is supoer fast and doesn't hog system resources. In my experience MSE is the best all arounnd solution and is built right into Windows Update. You really can't beat MSE and I bet most techies use the software.
Again, take this BS biased article down NOW! Shame on your Toms for this biased bit of reporting
Personally I goto quite a few shady sites, on Win7 Security Essentials never failed me, and so far on 8, it hasn't failed me.
Besides, the one thing nobody ever talks about, is the simple fact that no anti-virus etc will EVER be 100%. Until NEW virus are found and put into a catalog, the anti-virus program doesn't know about it.
Also, another reason I use Microsoft's AV etc, is because they KNOW windows. Google "mistake user32.dll flagged as virus bluescreen".
If you don't download illegal music plus movies and you stay away from the naked ladies sites.
In my opinion, care and common sense can very well make up for the lack of an antivirus.
Personally I goto quite a few shady sites, on Win7 Security Essentials never failed me, and so far on 8, it hasn't failed me.
Besides, the one thing nobody ever talks about, is the simple fact that no anti-virus etc will EVER be 100%. Until NEW virus are found and put into a catalog, the anti-virus program doesn't know about it.
Also, another reason I use Microsoft's AV etc, is because they KNOW windows. Google "mistake user32.dll flagged as virus bluescreen".
MSE (defender) is great stuff, is supoer fast and doesn't hog system resources. In my experience MSE is the best all arounnd solution and is built right into Windows Update. You really can't beat MSE and I bet most techies use the software.
Again, take this BS biased article down NOW! Shame on your Toms for this biased bit of reporting
Last time I used Microsoft Security Essentials (which is now built into Windows Defender in Windows 8), it deleted all my data and I had to use data recovery software to get my stuff back. Naturally I shelved MSE to my "never ever use again" antiviruses.
Right now I'm using Comodo, but it's being silly so I'm thinking about alternatives. Avast is my next favorite, but apparently it doesn't play nice with Windows 8. Good thing I'm on XP, I suppose.
Mind you, while we're on the topic of Avast; I've been looking at my Netlimiter 3 logs, and apparently while Avast was active, most of my traffic was hidden under the Avast process. This annoyed me somewhat, as I was unable to determine which applications were using the most bandwidth back then. Fortunately Comdo does not do this.
Using it as well on a machine at a small PC repair shop that we use to transfer data off infected computers and have noticed no ill effects on that unit either despite the fact that it's surrounded by malicious files in users' personal folders (downloads, most often)
On the flip side of the coin, I know people who use their favorite flavour of AV (Norton, McAfee, and even some good ones like Kaspersky and Bitdefender) and get infected regularly (often in spans of 6 month periods) due simply to their user habits. There is no "end all" and "be all" to malicious software protection, it starts and ends with the user, everything else is simply precautionary, not bulletproof.
In that case, 85% out of the box doesn't sound bad to me at all.
This is NOT the same flavour that was shipped with vista. This is essentially Microsoft Security Essentials with padding. Lightweight, and solid. Know what you're talking about before you bash a product due to your own pre-determinations and shortfalls.
Yeah, if you use a Pentium 3.
Well said. AVs are not for geeks like us, they are there for blonde babes.
No offence is intended.
SO true... and I uninstalled Kaspersky and went with Microsoft Security Essentials. I have not noticed any performance issues like I did with Norton, Symantec and Kaspersky. I agree...would love to see how BitDefender out of the box did against the same attacks? Did they do a broader test and see how it stacked up against the market leaders? Of course not... they wouldn't want to show a FREE app performed on par or better than the TOP paid apps.
The only thing that helped me resolve, was to actually use a Networking Monitor, and know that my useage was being leeched. All this came from a certain cracked audio program I once wanted.
I was once into collecting programs I'd never need, but today, I truly believe if you really want to make use of a program, then just buy it and support the creator.
I have MSE/MSD on all my computers, except my main.
Common sense and avoiding shady *cough* erotic *cough* websites on my main have kept it trouble free. Also, I use frontline defense that is more effective in the form of FireFox with noscript and adblocker, while trashing IE.
The best defense is a good offense IMO.