Windows defender

Eagle_1

Can anyone tell me (in simple terms) what Windows Defender does ? A friend told me that if you have Windows Defender you dont need to have anti spyware.
My PC has been crashing lately so thought its time to run a thorough check to see if there was anything causing a problem so I ran defender which said there was nothing there. So I then ran Ad Aware and it found 45 critical objects :eek:
So why didnt defender find anything or does defender not cover spyware

Browntoa

defender is anti spyware, apparently was not one of the best under recent tests but I run it myself in background as a "first line" of defence.

I back that up with random regular scans with AVG anti spyware and Spybot (I also add Spybots bad hosts list to my host file )

Browntoa

found the article about it

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2007/02/21/windows_defender_pctools_failstest/

and

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/20/anti-spyware_tests/

and sort of related

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/20/windows_live_malware/

Microsoft's search excels in spreading malware

Millionare

Browntoa is spot on. Its antispyware but in tests it didnt do vary good.

A Matter of fact I read somewhere it only picked up something like 17% of items thrown at it in recent tests.

Millionare

Browntoa wrote: »

found the article about it

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2007/02/21/windows_defender_pctools_failstest/

and

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/20/anti-spyware_tests/

ok maybe it did better than 17%:D

oh, ive found it http://www.webroot.com/land/Windows-Vista-Ready.php

dont know how true it is though

Eagle_1

lol, so probably best me binning it cos if it couldnt find anything yet the other found 45 then that tells me something.....and im not techy minded :rotfl: :rotfl:

thanks for clarifying that for me.

needmoney

Thanks Eagle for this thread I have run spybot and it's telling me I have 341 infected items . I didn't like to start a new thread because of the instructions in post 1 to 4 but I'm not very clever with that.

Before spybot will remove them I have to buy the full version and what I'd like to ask is is it worth buying. Thanks.

BillScarab

Defender may not be the best antispyware but it runs constantly unlike the free versions of Ad-aware and spybot so it is useful. Personally I run Defender and then do scans with Ad-aware and Spybot every now and again.

I thought Spybot would remove things without buying the paid for version. What version of Spybot is it?

needmoney

Thanks Bill, it's just spywarebot and the price comes up in dollars.

Millionare

BillScarab wrote: »

Defender may not be the best antispyware but it runs constantly unlike the free versions of Ad-aware and spybot so it is useful. Personally I run Defender and then do scans with Ad-aware and Spybot every now and again.

I thought Spybot would remove things without buying the paid for version. What version of Spybot is it?

That why I pay for my Spyware program, because of real time protection which free versions dont offer. and stops spyware in its track before it gets on my pc.

Now and again i run adaware as backup just incase something been missed but ive never had that detect anything aswell

shammyjack

needmoney wrote: »

Thanks Bill, it's just spywarebot and the price comes up in dollars.

If you have this and not SPYBOT read this

http://www.fbmsoftware.com/spyware-net/Application/SpywareBot/


The REAL Spybot Search and Destroy can be downloaded from here

http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10122137.html


shammy