

Microsoft Defender is built right in, blazing fast, doesn’t annoy you, and does its job cleaning old-school viruses. Use the Built-in Microsoft Defender for traditional antivirus – The criminals have moved on from regular viruses to focus on Ransomware, zero-day attacks, and even worse malware that traditional antivirus just can’t handle.Historically, we’ve recommended a combination of Microsoft Defender and Malwarebytes. Since we know that tons of people will just scroll down and skim, here is our TL DR recommendation for how to keep your system secure: In some instances Defender may need you to take some actions such as quarantining or removing the dangerous file or process.So What’s the Best Antivirus? Please Don’t Make Me Read All This If Defender finds malware on your device it'll block it, notify you, and try to remove the malware if it can. For more information see How to start a scan for malware in Microsoft Defender What if Defender finds malware? If you're concerned and want to have Microsoft Defender run a scan right now, you can do that by going to the Device protection page from the Microsoft Defender dashboard. If it spots something it will attempt to block it, and alert you so that you can take action if necessary. Microsoft Defender will also run quick scans of your device on a daily basis, in case anything manages to elude the real-time protection.

Microsoft Defender's real-time anti-malware protection runs whenever your device is on, keeping an eye out for malicious activity. When you first set-up Microsoft Defender on your device we'll run an initial scan to make sure you're starting off clean. Note: Microsoft Defender currently offers anti-malware only on Windows, Mac, and Android.
