windows defender

[gary]

would people be so kind as to give me their opinion on windows defender, is
it efficient and effective, do i need it to run in real time.
i already have installed spybot , spywareblaster, avg virus and spyware
scanner running in real time.
thank you

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

There is no substitute for a good backup plan. Nothing wrong with Defender.
You should measure the resource strain that your desired caution level
requires. If you basically avoid exposure to bad areas, running one system
should be enough. Starting up others when you feel the need is always
available.

 

[John Barnett MVP]

Windows defender works well for me and I run it on a daily schedule.
Incidentally I do not run Defender and my Anti Virus scans at the same time.
My Anti Virus, although it scans in real time, I also like to do a daily
scheduled scan, starts at around 7 pm and defender starts it scheduled scan
at around 7.30 pm (it usually only takes around 15 minutes for the anti
virus to do a scan of the system).

While defender is my main antispyware/malware application I also do manually
run an application called Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware (free edition)
(http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php)


--

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

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[DL]

Personnally, I have Defender running in real time & an Anti Virus app, they
both do scheduled scans at differing times.
I use other malaware/spyware tools, manually every so often, they rarely
detect anything.

 

[Nonny]

Personnally, I have Defender running in real time & an Anti Virus app, they
both do scheduled scans at differing times.
I use other malaware/spyware tools, manually every so often, they rarely
detect anything.

I can run for months with NO a/v and NO malware program running. When
I get around to doing any scanning, nothing is found anyway.

Malware scanners used to find tracking cookies until I started using
cCleaner to manage my cookies. Now malware scanners don't even find
tracking cookies.