# What's the deal with Windows Defender? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 30, 2006, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-windows-defender/354809 "2006-04-30T04:34:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-windows-defender/354809/1 "2006-04-30T04:34:35Z")
I’m not a techie. A few days ago I got a pop-up window asking me to download Windows Defender. Never saw it before. I downloaded it and have run it a few times. Nothing to report yet. Now can someone tell me what this thing is? And what if anything does it replace? Do I still need Norton anti-virus or Microsoft anti-spyware? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Palooka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/palooka/32/2902_2.png) [@Palooka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palooka)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-windows-defender/354809/2 "2006-04-30T04:50:30Z")
Windows Defender is the new version of Microsoft Anti-spyware. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-windows-defender/354809/3 "2006-04-30T04:56:00Z")
Defender is the official name for the final version of Microsoft Anti-Spy. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-windows-defender/354809/4 "2006-04-30T05:36:38Z")
Well, not the final version, as Windows Defender is still a beta product. ---
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-windows-defender/354809/5 "2006-04-30T07:37:39Z")
Speaking of, has anyone got it to work? I’d rather much prefer the previous beta version (Anti-Spyware Beta). ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-windows-defender/354809/6 "2006-04-30T07:45:23Z")
Wait. There are popup windows asking you to download software that are actually legit? ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-windows-defender/354809/7 "2006-04-30T10:54:36Z")
- - - If it came on “a popup”, that should have ONLY been a usual Windows Automatic Updates popup. Anything else means that you , , , um, , , , downloaded and installed _something else_… ~ ---
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-windows-defender/354809/8 "2006-04-30T13:03:37Z")
[QUOTE=DougC] - - - If it came on “a popup”, that should have ONLY been a usual Windows Automatic Updates popup. Anything else means that you , , , um, , , , downloaded and installed _something else_… ~ [/QUOTE] Maybe I should have made that more clear; no doubt this is a legit Microsoft product. It sounds like I can get rid of the other anti-spyware, but what about anti-virus software? I was thinking from the wording that the intent is to deal with viruses also. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-windows-defender/354809/9 "2006-04-30T13:50:15Z")
A bit of caution: No doubt there are scammers who do popups offering to install MS-Windows Defender but install their own “products” instead. Don’t install anything offered by popups ever.\* If you want MS-Windows Defender, go directly to MS’s website and download it directly from there. \*I am amazed how many people there are that click on these things. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-windows-defender/354809/10 "2006-04-30T14:01:18Z")
Windows Defender is not anti-virus software, so you’ll still need something else for that. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-windows-defender/354809/11 "2006-04-30T15:36:14Z")
I’ve noticed the current version of Windows Defender doesn’t seem to work properly: it doesn’t download definitions. That’s probably a temporary problem, but I’d wait a few weeks before downloading it. ---
**Author:** ![da\_pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ba0ec/32.png) [@da\_pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/da_pope)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-windows-defender/354809/12 "2006-04-30T15:47:52Z")
the new version of defender seems to be having issues downloading updates from behind proxy servers, see if that applies to you. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-windows-defender/354809/13 "2006-04-30T16:02:24Z")
[QUOTE=Plan B] Maybe I should have made that more clear; no doubt this is a legit Microsoft product. It sounds like I can get rid of the other anti-spyware, but what about anti-virus software? I was thinking from the wording that the intent is to deal with viruses also. [/QUOTE] I would not dump you other anti-spyware just yet. I have not downloaded Defender just yet, but I have been running MS Anti-spyware for about 6 months now. It is set to scan every night. It has found a grand total of 1 piece of spyware on my system. Yet several times I have had my system slow down to a crawl, and when I scan with Ad-aware and Spybot they find things that MS doesn’t. Every single time. IMHO it still needs some work. ---
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-windows-defender/354809/14 "2006-04-30T19:42:57Z")
[QUOTE=Rick] I would not dump you other anti-spyware just yet. I have not downloaded Defender just yet, but I have been running MS Anti-spyware for about 6 months now. It is set to scan every night. It has found a grand total of 1 piece of spyware on my system. Yet several times I have had my system slow down to a crawl, and when I scan with Ad-aware and Spybot they find things that MS doesn’t. Every single time. IMHO it still needs some work. [/QUOTE] Thanks, I had stopped using those. I’ll start using them again.