Rant Has windows defender ever caught a VIRUS?

[DL Signs]

It's not solely defender that protects, there's also the windows firewall and malware tools, modern network modems/ routers also have their own firewall, and there's password protection. It's not so much any one in particular does anything magic, it's just the layers that have to be penetrated. Just keeping everything up to date, including modem/ router firmware normally offers adequate protection for single users and small networks.

The biggest risk is the people sitting behind the keyboards. Most infections people install themselves, clicking links in emails or on websites, installing apps and software from sketchy 3rd party sources that bundle malicious stuff in with legit programs, bypassing those layers of protection.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Gotta say, I used to be a big fan of avast, but about 10 years ago it just became bloated garbage.
Mcafee is an amazing piece of software, no matter what sh*t john pulled over the years, folks still buy into the software. Simply amazing.
Norton is evil.
Malwarebytes plus bleeping computer are the only real solutions these days. Well that and not clicking download on every random thing.
I'll also add, I think gmail and google have done a ton of virus aversion for my company over the years. I don't have any numbers, but as I think back, after we switched to gsuite for all company emails, I can't recall needing to deal with any viruses.

surprised to see someone here knows about bleeping computer. when I was in IT, that place was ground zero for talking about and fighting viruses. combofix was my secrete weapon and it looked cool having a blue dos screen going crazy.

 

[netsol]

Once Windows started introducing telemetry back in Windows 7, that's when their OS's became trojans themselves. It started with like 20 or so beacons reporting to Microsoft. I disabled more then 250 in Windows 10. And that's leaving a chunk of the processes on for stability. Windows 10 even reports all calculations you've done in the Calculator app back to Microsoft and anywhere else it decides to give away or sell your data. Windows 11 might as well be considered Minority Report.

we have less privacy than the north koreans...

surprised to see someone here knows about bleeping computer. when I was in IT, that place was ground zero for talking about and fighting viruses. combofix was my secrete weapon and it looked cool having a blue dos screen going crazy.

i am surprised you say that.
i always think of mcaffee deciding in the middle of a large print job, that network printing (which had been setup for YEARS) was suddenly a threat we needed to be protected from...

I CERTAINLY AM PREJUDICED AGAINST JOHN, several close friends were in business with him & could spend days listing all the screwed up things he did.

ALTHOUGH, my favorite story (after the killing the neighbor thing) was the russian oligarch who send a female hit "person" to kill john
HE MARRIED HER

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

we have less privacy than the north koreans...

i am surprised you say that.
i always think of mcaffee deciding in the middle of a large print job, that network printing (which had been setup for YEARS) was suddenly a threat we needed to be protected from...

I CERTAINLY AM PREJUDICED AGAINST JOHN, several close friends were in business with him & could spend days listing all the screwed up things he did.

ALTHOUGH, my favorite story (after the killing the neighbor thing) was the russian oligarch who send a female hit "person" to kill john
HE MARRIED HER

If your not married to someone who wants to kill you...is that a real marriage?

 

[netsol]

If your not married to someone who wants to kill you...is that a real marriage?

Point taken…

 

[WildWestDesigns]

In my mind, there are quite a few things against Windows, rather or not Defender is a quality product is far from one of those. Between how Windows is setup from the get go and how users still interact with it, set it up as being a security nightmare and MS can try to blame that on whatever programming language of choice that they want to, it'll still be there.

Those that run Windows without any thought towards security and updates and think that they are free and clear, while might be true, I highly doubt it unless it is LAN only. Which in today's world is hard to do and be running Windows with the typical programs (and SaaS as been the bane of running a secure system as well, typically that is what happens when people exchange convenience for security).

 

[JBurton]

we have less privacy than the north koreans...

Well yeah, but it's not like they have any secrets to keep in the first place, so why pay any attention to them?