steelpony5555 wrote:
PS If you have a pre Windows 8 OS use Microsoft Security Essentials. If you have a Windows 8 machine then MSE will not work on it but Windows Defender has been updated to be equivalent to MSE.
Microsoft Security Essentials/Windows Defender may have been competitive years ago, but have tested consistently at or near the bottom for protection(detection) for some time through independent security testing.
Microsoft appears to have shifted their focus to providing security data to third party developers, and have lagged in their own free AV consumer product. Not really surprising, as its not an income generating operation, there being no paid consumer version available. And really doesn't make sense to incur additional expense of doing so when there are a number of free AV packages available from companies that do nothing but security development.
One has to ask the question if it really makes sense to rely on a product that lags behind other current free AV package in terms of detection? Which could allow enough of a hole to compromise one's system without the user even knowing it.