This is very subjective and for me, the deciding factors are performance impact/resource usage, number of ads for their paid products, and the intervention it requires for a lifetime of working. Regarding threat detection and self-protection, most major av's brand perform well enough, I've my analysis here, your mileage may vary.
What version of WFC are you using. I have an old version running on my Win7 machine. Waiting for my new Win10 laptop. I am running version 5.0.0.2. After that version the company was sold. I di not like the changes that were later implemented in WFC, so I still stick with that 5.0.0.2 version.
Script was last updated 26th Nov. 2020.. is probably the best solution for managing Defender, currently From the script itself
For me it was choosing between very good, free, bitdefender and avast and only chose Avast because I could temporarily disable it for erm cough, cough, opening certain programs.
Not sure I understand right here but if you mean turn off bitdefender protection shield you can do so easily and quickly in Bitdefender free and you can make exceptions to files and folders too?
compare to other free antiviruses Bitdiffender/AVG/Avast.. I see WD is performing much better, I only replace WD if I have either BitDiffender Int. Sec or Kaspersky Int. Sec or Total Security, ... I see WD is walking step by step and improved a lot over time and considering the Microsft Windows Operating echo system, having a hasslefree antivirus free of cost is more than that a user can expect ...
Well Russian Kaspersky total security used to be free from Barclays bank UK and they stopped it, whether they knew something that we don't...who knows. Was Barclays pressurised by US or UK governments? Again who knows?
The way I look at it goes something like this. If I were working on some top secret, super sensitive project for the US Government, something that Vladimir Putin and the Russians really wanted to get their hands on, then I would probably not use Kaspersky. Not that I think Kaspersky is in cahoots with Putin, but as they are based in Russia, they might be subject to pressure from their government. I do not think Kaspersky is evil, or bad, I don’t think they are interested in stealing my banking information and making off with my paltry savings. So I am perfectly content using Kaspersky on my personal computer. I have been an Eset user for many years, but last year when my subscription expired, the best deal I could find on Eset was twice as much as the best deal on Kaspersky, so … Which comes back around to the best AV for free. If you’re not willing to pay a few bucks (Kaspersky cost me $15 last year on sale), then just go with Windows Defender. It is “good enough”, at least in my opinion.
Pl have a quick look upon my bat script . easily to be understood about the functions it performs . Permanently Disable Defender to Use Thrid Party AV Pl Cross check via elevated command prompt : Powershell -Command "Get-MpPreference" The answer you will get is everything disabled via policies set by script .
went to all the recommended providers sites that were mentioned by a couple of users and checked if they (still) have a free version (with live shield), so it were bitdefender/kaspersky/eset/f-secure and maybe one or two more.. what can i tell you, only karspersky does, by this i mean what they offer on their page, not some old versions somewhere etc, and even they according to their documentation need an account, ok whatever, loaded the .exe, started...of course the defender blocked it (via the secured folder thingy forgot the name), so i go out and whitelist it, start the exe again, does not work, unknown error fu this nonsense ps admin does of course nothing, booted to safe mode (with network, since its a crappy online installer 2.6mb), guess what it put out: they do not install in safe mode they give 4 reasons for this "unknown error" (and they have like a dozen other error documentations hah), only one of those reasons applies to my situation, they recommend to set a restore point, my last automated was the same day, i did one manually anyway, still the same error free antivirus = garbage/crap. pps defender is included in this btw, because i would not be here otherwise (it let through a simple redirect script/hack to one of my browsers, no big deal, it blocked 3 other attempts according to notification center, so it could have been worse, still pathetic) ok i somehow found bitdefender free in a search engine, must have missed it and probably on another language version of their page or something, went all well, one notice was about malwarebytes that it could harm their installation so i went out and deinstalled that first + reboot, i mean it did not found anything anyway, after i ran a couple of other free scanners prior (no need to install ones) so i guess why keep malwarebytes then its pointless -- what i wonder now is if it is normal for the defender to be still green icon, inside the settings he took the "second role" alright and periodic scans are off, i guess thats now the default and as intended? so if it tries to screw something up now i will use the script that was provided here i saved that one in bookmarks
https://forums.mydigitallife.net/th...r-the-worst-av-ever.81120/page-9#post-1628871 Is that script still working fine on 21H1 Windows 10 build?