I won't comment on something that is, for now, just a rumour.
I, however, after reading an article ( see excerpt below ), have switched to Avast ver. 2014.9.0.2007 which is compatible with Win 8.1
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In addition, I have Mawarebytes free edition as my on-demand program. It has been my habit to run it once every 1 or 2 weeks.
excerpt:
In
Link Removed, Holly Stewart, the senior program manager of the Microsoft
Malware Protection Center, said that Microsoft Security Essentials was just a “baseline” that’s designed to “always be on the bottom” of antivirus tests. She said Microsoft sees MSE as a first layer of protection and advises Windows users to use a third-party antivirus instead.
Source to read...