Windows 8 Security Essentials yes or no?

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

I was reading the post in the Windows 7 forum, about Microsoft's message that Security Essentials is not meant to be the only AV software that you run on your computer and that they may be dropping support for it.

Does that mean that they want you to run 2 antivirus programs?
I already found out that running another firewall, besides Windows native one, stops the App Store from working in Windows 8.

I had to go back to the Windows firewall even though it was apparent that it was inferior to Zone Alarm.

So if you run a second AV program along with Defender, what do you run.

I could run Norton for free through Comcast, but I won't it's just too much of a resource hog.

What are other people running?
I've used AVG and Zone Alarm in the past.

Mike

 

[Trouble]

Just stick with Security Essentials / Defender (Win 8) and I sort of like to have MalwareBytes Pro backing that up, but that's up to the individual.

That's a bunch of nonsense, they are not abandoning Security Essentials, hell.... they just integrated it into their new Flagship OS and then doubled down with 8.1
Sometimes I don't know where this crap comes from.
Microsoft has to say stuff like that, they've had a lot of experience in court whenever they add something free within their Operating System. Their so called "Partners" seem to like to litigate anti-trust issues.

Picking an Anti Virus / Anti Malware product is getting as subjective as picking a browser and I don't believe for the most part that any of these so called objective evaluations are worth the one(s) and zero(s) they're written with.
The job they attempt to do is practically un-doable, as the battlefield and the enemy changes from one second to the next.

The hope of an antimalware program that can perfectly detect malware and malicious hacking is pure folly.

From a pretty decent article which includes some pretty interesting links

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

The truth is I haven't run anything but the Windows built in stuff along with both Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware for a long, long time.

When I couldn't get the Windows firewall to run I did use a third party firewall and it was more active then the native one but Microsoft won't let you do that anyway.

A lot of Windows functions don't work without the firewall.

I've only had a few malware issues over the years and not the virus sort of thing, just some of these browser or fake antivirus things that you have a hard time getting rid of. Malwarebytes usually does the job of getting rid of them.

So I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, I do run scans everyday with all my stuff plus CCleaner.

Mike

 

[davidhk129]

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
http://www.avast.com/en-ca/index

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 an interview with Dennis Protection Labs, 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 the entire article.

 

[sirloyne]

An anti-virus that's designed to fail and a firewall that can't be turned off, but lets everything out without asking first? Nice.