What antivirus is better than Windows Defender?

I mostly write reviews of VPNs, articles and features about VPNs, and responses to emails (of varying degrees of hostility) from or about VPN services. In nearly all of these contexts, I've tried to explain that VPNs (although excellent for securing your internet traffic) don't replace password managers, antivirus suites, or the use of two-factor authentication (2FA). But recently a reader asked me if I was implying that the security software from Microsoft was somehow lacking. That's a question worth considering.

Here's what our intrepid reader sent me. (Note that this excerpt has been edited for brevity and to remove personal information.)

You recommend third-party anti-malware, McAfee, Bitdefender, and Kaspersky in one of your articles. Are you suggesting that Microsoft Security Essentials on Windows 10 is not sufficient?

The short answer is that the bundled security solution from Microsoft is pretty good at most things. But the longer answer is that it could do better—and you can still do better with a third-party antivirus app.

Just How Well Does Windows Defender Perform?

For those who are unaware, Microsoft Security Essentials was antivirus software included by Microsoft with Windows starting in 2009, until it was supplanted by Microsoft Windows Defender Security Center. With this software, Microsoft ensured that customers would have some kind of protection from the moment they first booted up their computer. It costs them nothing and doesn't require them to take any action.

When Microsoft's security offering first went under the microscope, it didn't impress. But it improved over time, so much so that it started to snag top scores from independent lab assessments. In his review, my colleague Neil Rubenking found that Microsoft's offering does an excellent job detecting and preventing malicious software.

Now, Defender hasn't totally stolen the spotlight away from the McAfees and the Bitdefenders of the world. You could chalk that up to decades of name recognition for competitors, but testing has revealed some notable shortcomings in Windows Defender. We found that the SmartScreen filter in Edge blocked just 68 percent of phishing sites, for example. That's particularly bad compared with the 89 and 90 percent blocked by Firefox and Chrome. In those tests, Kaspersky and McAfee blocked 100 percent of the phishing sites.

That's especially disappointing because phishing attacks can do a lot of damage, and they don't require a lot of technical sophistication on the part of attackers. A phishing site tricks people into voluntarily handing over personal information—like credit card numbers—by impersonating a legitimate website. For more on this particular threat, you can read our story on how to avoid phishing attacks.

Windows Defender also doesn't cover the same breadth of products that third-party security companies do. The company that sells you antivirus software can also provide backup protection, a password manager, a VPN, parental control, and more besides, often rolled up in a security suite. 

Still, the ascension of Windows Defender is a good story. We conclude our review thusly:

“We used to say Windows Defender is better than nothing. At present, we’re willing to say it’s pretty darn good. Some of its lab test scores are excellent now, though it took a while to reach this point. […] It earned a great score in our hands-on malware protection test but didn’t do so well at detecting phishing frauds.”

A Matter of Perspective

I'm always glad when I get a reader question that I can answer definitively. I'm even happier when I can point to the work of an eminent colleague like Rubenking to back me up. But I want to address directly this reader's question as well.

I realize that even when I tangentially recommend security products, I should strive to make the recommendations as accessible as possible. Windows Defender is a great example. It's something most people already have, works well, and doesn't require you to pay anything (beyond the cost of Windows, at least).

This is especially important because the two biggest obstacles preventing people from adopting good security practices in their lives are money and effort. Security software is not fun to buy and only a little fun to use. It's also expensive! These days, we're expected to pay subscriptions for the videos we watch, the games we play, and now security software. We're rapidly approaching a future where security and especially privacy area luxury afforded to the people who can pay extra.

It shouldn't have to be that way, and it doesn't have to be. High-quality free security products do exist, and Windows Defender is a good way to keep you and your computer safe. It is, however, not the best. For that, we recommend Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, Kaspersky Anti-Virus, and Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus, among others. If you can afford them, these options will provide far more protection.

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Microsoft Defender – formerly known as Windows Defender – now covers a broad range of home, enterprise and cloud security and antivirus solutions. Let’s take a look at the consumer version of Defender built into Windows 10 and Windows 11 and how its features compare and differ to most third part anti-virus solutions.

Results from anti-malware testing houses including the AV-TEST, AV Comparatives and SE Labs regularly show that Microsoft Defender Antivirus’s protection against both live “real world” security threats and flat scans of reference sets of recently collected malware is comparable to that of the best third party products.

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What features does Defender have?

Defender doesn’t skimp on features either. Your Windows Security settings include:

• Real-time malware protection: the core of any modern antivirus is the ability to detect threats as you encounter them. Whether it’s malware on a USB stick or a drive-by download, Defender excels at this, aided by the vast amount of data about malicious software sent back for analysis by the world’s many Windows systems
  
• On-demand scans: Scan your entire PC or specific locations, whenever you need to
  
• Ransomware protection: Windows gets two different kinds of ransomware protection, in the form of both version-controlled backups of your most important data to OneDrive cloud storage and folder access controls to prevent changes being made to your most important directories without your knowledge and permission
  
• Microsoft Defender Firewall: Microsoft’s long-standing firewall isn’t quite as glossy as those you’ll get from Kaspersky or ESET, but provides capable protection against network threats
  
• Reputation-based web protection: Microsoft Edge users get Microsoft SmartScreen, which blocks known phishing and malware sites
  
• Parental controls: set screen time, Windows store purchase protection, opt-in location tracking and content restrictions for younger members of the household, synced across all of that user’s devices if they’re correctly registered to an online Microsoft account
  
• Find my device: Microsoft device location and remote locking – this only works for Windows desktops, laptops, Surface and Surface Pen products, however.

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What features is Defender missing?

There are some features Microsoft Defender lacks, or which could do with improvement. Scheduled scans have to be set up using the Windows Task Scheduler, via an old-school interface that doesn’t really match with Windows’ modern easy-to-use feel. Manual firewall rule creation feels similarly antiquated. And there’s no specific webcam protection module, which many people like as a peace-of-mind option.

But when it comes to the core function of protection your PC from malware threats from all sources, Microsoft Defender is both effective and – mostly – conspicuously easy to use.

If you’re running Windows 10 or Windows 11, Windows Defender provides as effective protection against malware as almost any of its free or paid-for rivals. You don’t need to install it or activate it, and its default configuration provides decent protection for most of the usual threats facing general consumers. It’s already there, working, as soon as your activate your OS. Remember to keep up with your Windows Security Updates and you’re golden.

However, if you’re still using older an Windows PC, whether through necessity or preference, you absolutely need dedicated third-party antivirus software to keep them safe from online threats, as well as the occasional instance of malware spread by other means. Avast is an excellent free choice and Kaspersky Internet Security will serve you well if you’re in the marked for paid-for antivirus.

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