Thanks for the links Dave.
These are very disappointing results for Defender, but not at all
surprising. After the fiasco of clearing out my daughter's machine
(incidentally, I now know she did have all the scanning options ticked),
I've been seriously considering whether Defender is worth keeping on my own
system (or indeed, on any system). I'd more or less decided in favour of
keeping it - not for its spyware detection abilities, which seem pitifully
(even incomprehensibly) poor, but for those system-change detections that,
interestingly, are highlighted in this review.
I shudder to think how many people out there are using Defender as their
only antispyware protection (assuming it's protecting them as it scans their
machines and reports nothing), while it seems any number of spyware programs
may be comfortably establishing themselves undetected.
