Is It Necessary to Install an Antivirus

The myth that Mac computers don’t need antivirus has been around for years in the computing world and is completely false. However, on the other side, it has always been recognized that Windows requires antivirus to deal with threats in terms of computer security, and this statement is less and less true . But simply because Windows Defender - which comes preinstalled in Windows 10 - has improved to a remarkable extent. But then is it still necessary to install an antivirus?

Microsoft has proposed with Windows Defender a tool dedicated to computer security that tries to eliminate dependencies with respect to specialized Antivirus Software. That is, a substitute for traditional antivirus. And it has done so by betting on a simple format , in which the user does not have to worry about configuring absolutely, reviewing any type of alert, and  everything works well without excessively affecting the performance of their devices.

Windows 10 Antivirus, in detail

The experts at AV-TEST regularly test Windows Defender, along with many other IT security solutions, and in recent months they have come across an exponential improvement to the Windows 10 antivirus. In their tests they examine the effectiveness of the antivirus against real threats of different types, the impact it has on the performance of the system in which it works, and the real usefulness of the antimalware solution. And in these tests there is a detailed breakdown in which each point is explained.

Protection

With regard to protection, the first point contemplates protection against day 0 Internet attacks and the detection of the most widespread and frequent malware in the last month. And in this first point, they highlight that 97.3% of the day 0 attacks are 'defended' in a satisfactory way, while Windows Defender is capable of acting correctly against 99.3% of the most recent malware threats. That is to say, that in these terms it is a little below - the first - and a little above - the second - with respect to the industry average, the rest of antivirus.

System load

In the system loading section, your score is even higher. Only a 10% slowdown in the 40 most visited websites, 1% in downloads and 17% in standard Antivirus Software. Very low values, and penalized only by 39% when installing frequent programs, although the average is 26%. When copying files, however, we again find ourselves with a 1% slowdown compared to 16% on average. In short, all these data mean that the negative impact on computer performance caused by Windows Defender is notably lower than the average of the antivirus solutions with which it competes. Although it is not as secure as some of its rivals, it is true that its load on the system requires very little effort, which benefits its overall score as an antivirus.

 

 

Utility

Another point that stands out is that it does not produce false alarms for the user when browsing the Internet. In its most recent tests, with more than 1.3 million programs, it only produced an erroneous malware detection in the secure software scanner, while the average is  6 false positives . And in a final test, which measures how many erroneous crashes have occurred when installing secure software, again Windows Defender did not produce any kind of problem.

So do we need an additional Antivirus in Windows 10?

For maximum protection of the computer , according to experts in computer security solutions, we would  need an additional antivirus . According to its most recent ranking, the most suitable solutions for its global score are AVG Internet Security Software 2016, Kaspersky Lab Internet Security 2016, Norton Security 2016 and Trend Micro Internet Security 2016. These above are the ones that have achieved  the highest score among all tested antivirus, and with a considerable difference compared to Windows Defender.

That is, this analysis serves to see that yes,  there are more powerful antivirus than Windows Defender , but Microsoft currently offers a fairly solid antimalware solution for free and pre-installed. You can perfectly ’live with Windows Defender' and keep a system protected against practically any type of threat, but it is still not the safest solution of all and convenient for the computer's performance, especially if we do not do a good configuration of Windows Defender . But according to this advance by the Redmond company, it is very foreseeable that Windows Defender will continue to grow until it is positioned as a sufficient antivirus solution to use a Windows 10 computer without antivirus.

However, if you are one of those who prefers to use your own security tool, these are the steps to follow to deactivate the Windows 10 antivirus and leave your computer protected only with the Antivirus that we have chosen.