Any working (and free) AntiVirus for W8 CP?

[davehc]

Load of Proverbial? Well, I do my best. as you can see from electric's post - far from it. Not quite clear of the connection between the remainder of your proverbial and the quote of my post?

 

[Vince53]

I'm repeating this from another thread. I installed the 8 Preview on a VM and added the free Avast AV. Defender shut down automatically. I later installed Win 8 Preview on a partition and left Defender alone., Both AVs are working fine.

 

[Vince53]

I just found on the MS website that if you install another AV, Defender will automatically turn itself off. As Jimbo points out, we're not sure if third-party AVs have access to the 8 kernel, and they might simply be Win 7 AVs. I would stick with Defender.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there

Update

MSE DID install originally -- that was when I (and I think a lot of others) were much more inexperienced with W8 than we are now.

MSE not only is NOT needed any more it won't even install after you've applied the latest Windows updates -- I haven't a clue what will happen IF you've ALREADY installed MSE and then try for the Windows Updates. Windows defender is meant to do it all seamlessly.

I've since re-installed W8 from scratch and this time haven't installed MSE.

As far as the AV program not having a GUI etc --why should it if it's working in real time etc.

You shouldn't need to run any scans etc and it should update its virus definitions any time it needs to when you are on the internet.


Windows defender is reasonably smart -- sometimes however it gives a bit of false information --I am using logitech squeezebox server now known as logitech media server which I use for audio streaming to my Squeezebox system and Logitech Internet Radio -- and Windows defender came up with a red symbol saying this is not a commonly downloaded program and might cause problems.


It did give me the choice of whether to install the program or "kill it". As it's from a trusted source I installed -- but it shows the AV system is functioning.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[M1GU31]

makes sense why wouldn't Microsoft just built in mse. I mean come on it is there product and was free in the first place. see it as a good thing

 

[Vince53]

Does anybody remember MSAV? Microsoft Anti-Virus was installed with early versions of Windows. It scanned your files (but could not run the background) and if a file had suddenly gotten larger without you doing anything, it deleted the file and replaced it with the original file. The bad guys figured out how to have the virus tell MSAV that the size of the file hadn't changed, and MS then gave up.