Just curious if using MS Windows Defender is good enough internet security for one's pc? I feel it is, but I want to hear your thoughts. Let's start the conversation! :)
For the average user, it's decent. It could be a lot less powerful and a lot more effective, however. I personally don't use any antivirus software, and use
Sordum Defender Control to disable Windows Defender completely, and I have never been infected with a virus in well over two decades of advanced computing. The #1 antivirus out there is the user. If you can hack the user, it is difficult for any software to reliably save you. That said, in my many years of building and fixing PCs, providing support and removing viruses, Malwarebytes has come in the most handy. What grinds my gears about the "antivirus" scene is how over-thought everything is.
The #1 point of entry (by far!) of all viruses in my experience is via
CScript.exe or
VBScript.exe, when the user opens a file (often an email attachment) they thought was a document or photo, and it ended up being a script file with a double extension (i.e. Invoice_2025-09-04.pdf.js or Photo0904.jpg.vbs or MeetingNotes9-4.docx.js). Because Windows hides file extensions by default, people aren't used to checking them, nor are they familiar with what would be normal, and they can't even see the ".js" or ".vbs" killers on the end that should be an immediate STOP. Because Windows hides the actual extension, ".vbs", all the user sees when opening the file is "Photo0904.jpg"—looks safe, right? And because security is so over-thought, users are used to clicking through security warnings, "Yeah yeah, of course I want to open this photo, yes I know it's an attachment, yes I know it was downloaded from the Internet, stop bugging me!" Furthermore, Microsoft, in all their endless idiocy has failed to make either script engine check the filename for a double (fraudulent) extension to trigger a bigger security warning/impediment to the user. A few lines of code added to
CScript.exe and
VBScript.exe to check the command line for this, and the majority of Windows infections (at least in the consumer sector, through this vector), would stop immediately.
The #2 most common point of entry for viruses (in my experience) is legitimate software download sites riddled with malicious ads. You're on the site to download a legitimate piece of software (HwInfo64, for example) and the actual download button is a small link on the page. Meanwhile, there are banners on the left and right sides of the page with big [Download] buttons that go to malicious software. And when you click the correct download link, another ad pops up with a big [Download] button that also downloads malware into your computer if clicked. You have to click the tiny [x] button to make the ad go away and start the legitimate software download you were originally seeking. But because the user's mindset is "I'm downloading software from a trusted source", they are primed to bypass security and UAC warnings with whatever software downloads, and if they click the wrong [Download] button, who knows what they'll get. Adding an extension like Ghostery to your web browser goes a long way toward mitigating this issue by surpressing most such banners. As much as I hate the Microsoft Store with its massively bloated modern app platform, the one good thing about it is it bypasses this issue. None of the software on the Microsoft Store should be malicious, and you're not going to get random ads from untrustworthy sources mixed in on your trustworthy software download site.
The #3 most common point of entry for viruses (in my experience) are bad web browsers that automatically pop up [Open] or [Run] buttons for any/all completed downloads. Internet Explorer was terrible in this regard, popping up a blocking dialog every time. A malicious ad would spawn a download on some site the user was visiting, and as soon as it would finish downloading, the page view would be blocked with a dialog "Do you want to open or run this file?" and so often the user will blindly click the [Open] button—"I'm trying to open this page, I don't know why it's not working" and proceed to load malware onto their PC. Chrome and Edge are also bad in this regard. While they don't show a blocking download dialog like Internet Explorer did, they pop up notifications that downloads have completed, with a little "Open" link next to the completed download. Switching users to Mozilla Firefox has stopped so many of my repeat offenders from calling me with malware infections. On the (rare) occasion I get called, it's shocking to see just how much they've been spared from inadvertently opening on their PC when checking their Downloads folder: UnwantedSoftware.exe, UnwantedSoftware(1).exe, UnwantedSoftware(2).exe, UnwantedSoftware(3).exe, UnwantedSoftware(4).exe, UnwantedSoftware(5).exe—you get the idea. The crap just downloads silently again and again in the background and they never open it. They never intended to open it—they were just browsing. When the page "doesn't work", they go back and on to the next search result. But when browsers pop up something with the language "Open" on it, they click it—"I'm trying to open this page..." And then they're at the mercy of their antivirus to detect the specific rogue actor they loaded into their PC this time, and stop bad things they intentionally opened from doing damage. Ransomware, for example, can do great damage in the background in a short time without ever asking for UAC elevation.
Also (while I'm talking about browsers), Mozilla Firefox is the only web browser that actually securely encrypts your saved passwords—if you set a master password. Chrome (and alternate skins for Chrome, such as Edge and Brave) pretend to, but any software running on your PC can dump the entire password database at any time, in an instant, in the background, without UAC elevation, and upload it to a hacker, and you'd never know.
Anyway, I have never encountered a PC infected with a zero-day (or similar) exploit (you know, the vulnerabilities you need antivirus, Windows and software updates for). Every infection I've removed over the years I have been able to trace back to intentional actions taken by the user. Yes, spontanious infections can happen, but comparitively speaking, they are very rare.
Do you want a parachute that's 98% effective or one that's 99.9% effective?
I plan to avoid regularly jumping out of airplanes on purpose.
I started using it after that experience some years ago. The usb stick had linux on so the virus (trojan) wasn't detected until it was plugged into a Windows machine. Panda vaccine doesn't work on Windows 11 any more so I have it on a windows 10 laptop just to vaccinate usb sticks. Malwarebytes or AV can scan files on them before use once plugged in as well.
