After all, how difficult is it to go through a quick download process, and a fairly simple installation? Most of the free antivirus apps out there are far from tricky to get up and running – so why not do so? However, if you can easily get somewhat better protection by downloading a superior free third-party antivirus, then the other argument is that you should do so.

It’s a no-effort solution that’s just there from the get-go within Microsoft’s OS, ready to protect you and provide robust defenses as we’ve just outlined.įor less tech-savvy folks who may not even really be sure what an antivirus is or does, having a decent baseline form of protection by default in Windows is definitely a very good thing there can be no argument on that score. Still, another major benefit of Microsoft Defender is that it’s fully integrated with Windows 10. In short, while Microsoft Defender might be very solid these days – more than solid, actually – it’s still not the ultimate free antivirus option out there. So the overall picture is that Microsoft Defender is now more than solid in terms of defending against malware threats – which is great to see – but the caveat is that it’s still not as good as some free offerings. SE Labs also found Defender had a total accuracy rating of 99%, placing it 5th out of a field of 13 in its home anti-malware protection report for Q4 2020 – a very respectable result. And there were better findings from AV-Test, where Microsoft Defender has scored full marks in the past four tests (which took place over the course of 2020). In AV-Comparatives’ July-October 2020 Real-World Protection Test, Microsoft performed decently with Defender stopping 99.5% of threats, ranking 12th out of 17 antivirus programs (achieving a robust ‘advanced+’ status).

View Deal (opens in new tab) Big improvementsĪs mentioned, Microsoft Defender is now looked upon as a much stronger contender in the free antivirus world than it was in the past, something that’s clearly reflected in the latest evaluations by the major independent labs that regularly test antivirus apps.

Is microsoft defender any good