One of the most frequent questions we receive from clients is about whether or not they should pay for antivirus protection. We’ve all heard horror stories on the news or from friends about ransomware, identity theft, and computers being taken over by malicious programs. Naturally, your security is of utmost importance and it’s reasonable to wonder whether or not free antivirus programs like Windows Defender are effective. The truism “you get what you pay for” often raises doubts about Windows Defender and we’re here to explain why you don’t need to pay for security programs.
In an illuminating article about “Why you can stop paying for antivirus software,” Mark Hachman, the Senior Editor at PCWorld reports that when tested against sixteen security vendors, Windows Defender was one of only four programs that successfully prevented malware from taking over its system. It earns top scores from the three testing labs he reviewed (AV-comparatives, AV-TEST, and SELabs) and it consistently outperforms the vast majority of other security programs on the market. Windows Defender also earned a perfect score against zero-day (brand new) attacks in June earlier this year (Defender previously underperformed here) and continues to earn perfect protection scores from AV-TEST in July and August as shown below:
This demonstrates that Microsoft has made massive progress in terms of security when compared to its lackluster performance in earlier years. Windows Defender consistently earns the highest marks in recent security tests, and we, along with many other computer experts, enthusiastically recommend than you rely on it for your security needs. If your main concern is protection from malware, why pay for another program when you already have a first-class solution installed on your PC?