
They bottomed out at the end of 2014, when the software caught 49 percent of zero-day malware in November (according to AV-TEST), and 72 percent of widespead malware in December. None of this is to say that Windows Defender is terrible it's better than nothing.Īs with Windows Defender, MSE's detection rates are all over the place. (The most recent versions don't support Windows XP.) Unlike Windows Defender, it must be downloaded and installed manually, although its malware definitions are automatically updated.

MSE is still around, protecting countless Windows 7 and Windows Vista machines. (To be precise, the later Windows Defender incorporates both the active-defense MSE and the earlier Windows Defender, a post-infection malware-cleanup tool.) Microsoft Security Essentials turned out to not be half as good as even the best free third-party antivirus product - and Windows Defender is just a rebranded version of MSE for Windows 8 and later.

Then they had a look at the software and breathed sighs of relief. It was MSE, not Windows Defender, that made established antivirus companies cry foul and threaten to complain to antitrust regulators. OneCare was replaced with Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE), a free download for Windows XP, Windows Vista and the then-new Windows 7. The company had earlier failed with a paid product, Windows Live OneCare, that was discontinued in 2009. Windows Defender isn't Microsoft's first foray into the antivirus pool. The Long Road to Microsoft Self-Protection Things may be looking up for Microsoft's free AV software. Still, those erratic numbers are a vast improvement from 20, when Windows Defender was scoring about 65 percent against zero-day malware, and about 70 percent for widespread malware. (To be fair, it stopped between 99.1 and 99.9 percent of widespread malware in all three instances.) In earlier tests conducted on Windows 10 by AV-TEST, Windows Defender stopped 80.5 of zero-day malware in September 2015, and 95 percent the following month. In December 2015, its Windows 8.1 zero-day-detection rate slipped to 90 percent.

In evaluations conducted on Windows 8.1 in November 2015 by German independent lab AV-TEST, Windows Defender detected 97.5 percent of zero-day malware, and 99.6 percent of widespread malware.īut Windows Defender's detection rates are consistently inconsistent. That doesn't mean Windows Defender isn't getting better than it once was. Our best-reviewed products, Avira Free Antivirus and Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, have detection engines that consistently stop between 99 and 100 percent of both categories of malware. Most other products we review, free or paid, stop better than 95 percent of zero-day malware, and 98 or 99 percent of widespread malware.
