As usual, the company compared a collection of anti-malware products, 19 this time. Each program is given a score of 18 points. You may remember Microsoft failed to score top marks for the previous April test. There are six points for each of the following categories: Protection, Performance, and Usability. Microsoft Defender – alongside other anti-virus programs – scored the top marks across all categories. You can see in the image (main above) how each antivirus software performed alongside Defender.
Recent Ups and Downs
The performance/quality of Microsoft Defender has been a mixed bag over recent tests. AV-TEST ranked the suite as one of the best antivirus options for home users in February, but later tests by AV-Comparatives found no improvement, while TechPowerUp (TPU) recently found Defender is hogging resources on Intel machines. In July, AV-TEST found that Defender excels at preventing ransomware attacks. Microsoft Defender consistently performed amongst the top solutions in both personal and business categories. The suite was able to detect ransomware attacks early, which is important for alerting customers and giving them time to act to precent threats. In home use, Defender detected all but one infection, while in enterprise Defender was able to detect all 10 infection tests. Tip of the day: Need to create an ad-hoc network from your PC? In our tutorial we show you how to easily create a shareable wireless internet connection in Windows as a free WIFI hotspot.
