Does Windows Defender do anything anymore?

...especially on the XP machines, where it is not integrated?

Seriously, I haven't seen the darn thing actually catch a piece of malware in years, and yesterday I was working on a machine where the only thing it did was sit there creating a massive log of things it saw but neither alerted the user or attempted to stop or fix.

If anyone has ever looked at the Defender logs on XP, they are simple text files--this computer was sitting there with a massive 4 gb text file as a log!

Do you have any idea how big a 4gb text file is? You could probably store the entire bible is less than a megabyte, but to get to 4gbs of nothing but text--Windows Defender was just completely spazzing out.

When Microsoft bought the Giant Antispy I can recall thinking it is only a matter of time before they mess it up, but it is basically only useful for shutting off a few programs from starting up. What a waste of code.

 

I've never personally seen it remove anything, simply because I'm that good

But I have seen it catch stuff on the Internet. If that counts for anything....

 

Defender has never done much for me, even with Advanced Spynet membership.
I guess this optional in-the-cloud system has never really taken off.
Btw, was the computer seriously infected making Defender perhaps go crazy or was it just Defender on it's own?

 

You could say that about a lot of other security software as well. After watching Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware not catch anything for three years on any of my computers, I finally decided last year to uninstall them and just use MBAM and SAS as on-demand scanners. Heck, even MBAM and SAS haven't found anything other than cookies on my computers for the past year. I guess when you browse with Firefox and use Avira as AV and Spywareblaster as passive protection you're just not going to pick up much malware if you use common sense when on the computer. On my Vista computers I just leave Defender turned on and its never been intrusive or slowed my systems down.

 

Yes, the computer was infected--fairly bad one to...defender, though, isn't really an antivirus--it's bread and butter is more stopping spyware, but even there it fails miserably.

Defender was just sitting happily in the background writing to the log, "ooh bad thing, but I'm just gonna keep that to myself and not stop it or alert anyone"

Seriously, 4 GIGABYTES of a log--holy crap. The computer harddrive was just churning away when I got there and the defender engine was quietly using about 7 percent of the CPU just creating a massive text log, kind of like some church lady at a bar going "tut tut"

 

I have never seen it find anything either. I always thought it was worthless right from the beginning.

 

I know Windows Defender poped up with messages that KIS is doing something with the "anti banner module" or that some starup process was changed (installation of something etc.)

 

I have it disabled. Last time, I used to enable it. But now on Vista, I need to preserve more RAM and faster boot-up and start-up.
If I am on Windows 7 again, I will enable it, since Windows 7 is fast.

 

WD sucks. It cannot do anything. we just need 3rd party in any case and I love KIS.

 

IMO, MS defender is just a waste of space... maybe some people are using it. Personally I don't use it, there are other ways you be more assured of program security than using this one.

 

After installing WSE in Windows 7, Windows Defender is "turned off." Check out the image.

Jeremy

 

That's standard routine for MSE.
Windows Defender technology has been improved and added in MSE, thus there is no need to run WD separate also.

 

I realy don't know, I disabled it from first day

 

WD is just extra hdd eating thing rather than a real protection. I just love KIS>

 

I run KIS 2010 and Windows Defender - windows Defender will sometimes pop up with a startup modification, KIS doesn't.

The thing is thouh, you can run Windows Defender and any security suite.

 

KIS 2010 seems to be weaker already when I read the August 2009 AV/IS comparison.
I hope they will improve it soon. Because Kaspersky is a good AV/IS, I don't want it to be suck.
I turned off WD currently(used to be turn on last time) due to Vista.
If I am on Windows 7, I guess, I will turn on WD.

 

I noticed this - I wonder why.

Did they mess up? Did viruses become better?
Did someone find a loophole in KIS?
Ah well... but yes, they did drop down one rating

 

It probably has something to do with the trend of virus core technology when pitted against KIS' protocol for detection.

KIS uses a special behavioral detection technology rather than the basic signature detection(at least the older versions did) so if viruses were coded to act the same way as regular files, KIS might have a lower detection rate.

This is mostly a nutshell example, but you get the point I think.

 

That may be true.

But I'd have thought KIS also would use the signature detection?...
(additional to te behaviour detection)

Ah well, I'm sure they'll catch up again

 

They do have a signature detection protocol, but of course, that protocol is different from the one NIS, nod32 or other applications use(since you know, they can't copy the protocol codes lol ).

So really, it could've simply been a change in the core virus technology. At one point, KIS ranked one of the highest detection rates on the market so I'm guessing virus programmers could have targeted its scanning protocol specifically.

 

I saw those sellers was bringing back the KIS 2010(probably got rejected by the users). I felt like pity them.
Kaspersky have the greenish design which I like but it is slightly heavier in resources. I don't like this part. Now, Kaspersky is 1 of the poorest detection rate AV/IS due to those Hackers/Viruses designer(aiming it).
Norton 2009-2010 design is great too. The old 1 was like horrible.
Most horrible design got to be Avast with the Gameboy Emulator or WMP design. But I think they changed it already.
Lastly, I think Kaspersky will release some kind of fix or patch to raise its fame again.

 

Maybe.

But let's get on topic again This is a Windows Defender topic

 

Guys, the protection that KIS/Kaspersky Internet Suite offers, can't solely be judged by the performance of KAV/Kaspersky Anti Virus in the recent AV-Comparatives test (or other AV-tests).
The suite has more components than just the protection offered by the KAV engine which of course lacks the multiple layers offered by KIS.

One should really only judge AV programs when refering to AV-Comparatives.
They don't test the protection offered by full suites.

And agreed, back to Windows Defender as a topic.