Is Windows Defender effective?

Is Windows Defender really effective at protecting/removing spyware?

I scanned for spyware with it, then when i scanned again with Lavasoft's Ad Aware, i get about 14 other spyware. For me it is not effective.

 

I have Windows Defender on my computer, along with Ad-Aware and Spybot. Windows Defender has never detected any spyware on my computer, while Ad-Aware and Spybot get some every scan.

Is it a coincidence that every time I use Defender there is no spyware? I think not .

 

According to the statistics on Windows Defender, it is not successful at the task it seeks to accomplish (Zdnet, 2007; Wikipedia Discussion ~2006).

 

it never catches anything since i used back it last year.

 

i had it on my system sometime back maybe a month or so back if im not mistaken and dare i say it was worthless always shows that your system is clean even though it maybe not
certainly not reliable in my opinion if you wuld like something much more effective i would recommend something like ad-ware personal along with ccleaner atleast thats what does the trick for me

 

I had it on my computers for over 6 months and it never found anything. So I agree with everyone else.

 

I had defender pick one up once. Solo it is useless but in cooperation with another suite (like KIS6 that I use) it works ok. I would not pay money for it though. There are better ones out there for sure.

 

I never really used it. I installed it, but always used other things, and then one day it suddenly became broken for no reason. It never caught anything and never updated like it was supposed to.

Of course, I now use Ubuntu and don't use an anti-spyware program, so I'm a bit out of the loop.

 

I voted no.

Windows Defender is Windows Pretender.

 

which one from the MS stable is NOT a pretender??

 

A test result said WD failed to detect almost 50 percent of malware threats.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=8474

 

I don't think my windows defender has ever detected anything... I just uninstalled it today; I had forgotten I even had it since all it did was sit in the background invisible taking up resources but not finding anything..

 

I have never found any spyware either - but I voted yes.
I like its ability to show you the most important things when you suspect that something is wrong. Like startup, running, network connected or winsock programs. You can easily find which one shouldn't be there.
It also does quick scan by default - so perhaps full scan would give some other results. (or not?)
Many programs like adaware and spybot are very happy to report anything that may be in connection to adware and viruses (that is good in one way). Like cookies perhaps? Temp? So I am always interested when I see everything red and then realise that there is actually nothing wrong with my comp.
And if you turn on the option to see what changes are being made by the software permitted to run, you would see some nice attempts of questionable behaviour even from the best antivirus programs and utilities. Like why some anti adware software is so eager on cleaning the registry from the menace, and if you uninstall it it leaves its dirty laundry in your registry? Check Norton for example...
And I also agree with most of the people - it is not meant for cleaning the vermin. It is mostly for alerting when something goes wrong. I have spent more than enough time cleaning all kinds of stuff on my friend's computers with simple notepad, regedit, windows explorer etc... Spybot, AVG, Adaware helped, but not eliminated completely some of the bad things. The last thing you can rely on is actually knowledge of the Windows system - and how it works. Tools are helpers, not solvers.

And for the end to illustrate the point - a hidden autorun.inf in your disk root that changes the behaviour when you doubleclick disk's icon in Windows Explorer by starting some missing exe or whatever is a menace that no antivirus or adaware will find. Imagine dialog box popping every single time you click to open volume. Check registry - yes there is a new open command. You delete it. Restart - there it happens again. So how would I fix that? By knowing what happens when I doubleclick disk icon in windows explorer. It searches for the autorun.inf BEFORE it actually does the default Open command (or explore). And autorun.inf wants some other program to handle that operation. Here you go - viruslike, adwarelike thing that cannot be solved using any tool. Not even with Defender (Pretender as many people like to call it )

I hope I haven't sounded too harsh - but that is how I see it. It is based completely on my personal experience during the last 10 years of professional career.

Cheers,

Ivan

 

Yeah, a study in a few magazines a bit back did extensive tests on all freeware versions of antivirus, spyware, malware, adware, etc. And Windows Defender was like a broken car bender: useless & ugly & a waste of RAM & a waste of 11MB of HD space.

 

It's never detected anything on my computer.
I use it with Ad-aware and spybot.

It did detect something on a friend's computer a few months ago. I had to format the computer since it was infected so bad.

 

I guess the moral of the story is to use M$ products with caution!

 

and any products too....

 

WD is effective. All of my univ. campus computers have it and it detects most of the spyware. Ofcourse it wont detect anything if you dont have any spyware. Ad-aware detects cookies as well while WD doesnt. So you wont see any spyware infections when you scan the system.

 

I have got that impression too. All this fuss about cookies, temp and old registry leftovers. That is why I actually use Spybot and adaware only when I need them. WD helps me deciding when to do that. I think miner is right - WD doesn't report anything because there is nothing to worry about anyway. Hm.

Ivan

 

It found nothing when I used it for a few weeks, so I stopped using it and went back to Ad-Aware.

 

Not effective in my opinion.

 

I voted no.
It has a larger performance impact than others I've tried, and it doesn't do a great job of catching spyware either.
I used it to stop something adding itself to the startup list, and it crashed my system.
Things like that just annoy me.

 

Never used it myself, but from what I've read, it sounds only so-so. I use Ad-Aware Special Edition Personal myself. Can't recommend it highly enough. It's very lightweight, quick, and seems quite proficient at catching and getting rid of nasty little critters.

 

I suspect that what most people are calling "spyware" is not really spyware but only data miner cookies. Products like ad-aware report these and it makes you think it's really "catching" stuff on your computer. The MS product doesn't deal with the cookie stuff and it's not intended to.

 

Based on testing, WD is not as effective as Ad-Aware or Spybot SD. The difference between their effectiveness however is not as big as many think. Many of the 'threats' detected by Ad-Aware or Spybot are not nearly as harmful as you could be led to believe, and WD will defend against many of the actual threats as effectively as they will. If antispyware is a strong concern however, there are many products that will beat any of these three in detecton/protection as well as many methods that could reduce exposure to spyware as well. Is WD effective? Not really. Is it massive waste of time/resources? not really any more so than Ad-Aware or Spybot if you get technical.