We found basic options dispersed across various menus, making adjustments frustrating. The secure firewall of Microsoft Defender monitors inbound and outbound network traffic but lacks the user-friendliness of Norton’s or Intego’s firewalls. Overall, while Microsoft Defender offers satisfactory basic antivirus protection, rivals like Norton and Bitdefender provide superior features. The offline scan proved helpful, but it had limitations when compared to Norton’s recovery tools. In our tests, the custom scan enabled scanning of specific files, but its interface was cumbersome. The full scan took over an hour, and it failed to detect all malware samples, while Norton’s scan was faster and more comprehensive. We found that the quick scan was effective but slower than Bitdefender’s counterpart. The scanner features four types of scans: Quick, Full, Custom, and Microsoft Defender offline scans.

It employs a vast database, machine learning, and heuristic analysis to identify threats such as trojans, worms, cryptojackers, and rootkits. Micrososft Defender, also known as Windows Defender and Windows Security, provides an adequate malware scanner. If you want the best protection, we recommend Norton. However, we believe Norton or Bitdefender is worth the upgrade. It is included for free with a Microsoft 365 subscription.

But it misses a VPN, password manager, and more. Microsoft offers anti-malware, anti-phishing, a firewall, and parental controls. So it has a noticeable effect on the speed of your PC. Microsoft averaged 5.60 out of 6 in the last 10 performance tests. It is excellent at detecting and removing malware. Microsoft averaged 5.90 out of 6 in the last 10 protection tests. But if you want complete protection for your identity, privacy, and devices, buy a security suite like Norton, Bitdefender, or Kaspersky. So if you only want malware protection, it could be enough. But it misses a VPN, password manager, dark web monitor, identity theft protection, and more. Its feature set include real-time protection, a firewall, and basic parental controls. In essence, it remains a free antivirus program. But it has a noticeable impact on your PC’s speed. Microsoft Defender has excellent anti-malware protection (even surpassing some brands like TotalAV), a few security features, and is included for free with Windows 365. Microsoft Defender is ranked #20 out of 20 antivirus software.

Total av for android free