windows defender

Do I really need to have windows defender? It slows my pc down so I usually cancel the scan I went out yesterday and left it running 4 hours later I came back it was still running, does it always take that long? I find when it runs it slows the pc down so much that is why I always turn the scan off. Can I just uninstall it? Is it a programe on its own? Or built into windows?

Tara

 

You can uninstall it, sure. Many here feel that it's not very effective anyway, that there are other programs that do a better job.

Or, you could turn off automatic scanning; or set it to scan less often and/or set it to just do a Quick Scan, which only takes a few minutes. If you want to change those settings, open Windows Defender and go to Tools > Options.

 

Could also set it to scan in the wee hours of the morning when you're sleeping or gone. What are your system specs? That could help determine why it's bogging your system down.

 

Thanks have unistalled it believe ir or not it said it was on the quick scan setting when it was still going 4 hours later!!

Tara

 

dear lord......that's insane! Yeah windows defender didn't really work for me. I had it for a month and noticed my computer was running horribly so I did a scan and WD showed nothing. I downloaded and ran spybot and adaware and it found like 14 sources of adware and 32 sources of spyware. Needless to say not a big windows defender fan anymore.

 

I agree! WD sucks. I've only ever seen Windows Defender flag VNC as a threat, and it's something we use legitimately! At the time, the version we were using didn't even allow you to permanently allow VNC to pass. I still use it for some reason, though... I just make sure I have adware and spybot to back it up.

 

What OS are you running on??