If you ever think "Windows Defender should do it", think again.

@azuredivay I ran BitDefender Live and I'm doing another pass with Kaspersky Live now.
So far it's found 2 files that BD missed. Pretty impressed.

@gururaju Thanks for your sound advice mate. 😐

@gururaju I already have. I only use it for Adobe crap.

hmm no one mentioned NOD32 is the best....opps I just did.

@lukegv that was my mentality for several years and everything seemed fine. But today I learned that Defender isn't "better than nothing". It is in fact much worse than nothing. So do yourself a favor and run a live CD scan.

But but linux has no virus /s

@dontbeevil It's the most popular server OS, of course it does. Just not the kind you're used to on Windows.

The best thing to do? Just use "Brain.sh"... And Linux.

If windows is not your main OS pls don't install any antivirus, virus developers gotta put food on the table too .

The beta version in windows insider actually found more than Malwarebytes when i tested it.

@franga2000 the latest version is quite good actually.

If it's the original, KMS.exe is not malicious. To see if it's the original, just get the hash of the file.

If you use common sense, Windows Defender is definitely enough. I've went without third-party antivirus software for years and haven't had a single problem.

@Koolstr Ever heard of Drive-By-Download or similar exploits?

@Koolstr I've never had any problems either, until I had to install a sketchy driver today.
It was very obvious that there was a virus (popups, 4 chinese processes, registry entries...), yet Win Defender didn't find a thing. Every single other program I tried found it in seconds.

Saying that Defender is enough is saying that you don't need an antivirus at all.

@franga2000 always run sketchy programs in vm or sandbox before installing. Common sense.

@Dacexi it is a VM and I do have snapshots. Sketchy software is the main reason I still have windows.

And to the few people that mentioned KMS: I do have a license (from an old laptop), but since I usually run the disk in VBox, it deactivates all the time. KMS is set to use my legit key.

Win Defender's developers are trying to lure you into using Linux. You should be thankful.

@franga2000 Nonetheless, common sense would keep you away from those kinds of things. If you're careful enough to even run shady things in Sanboxie, then there really is no need for antivirus software. It's not worth the space, the annoyances, the constant false flags, and the excessive ram and disk usage.

@Gatgeagent no, what are those?

@Koolstr personally i would not call a couple 10s of mbs expensive. And i have never had my av go above 2% disk

@SoupSpoon they have that on our school laptops and personally i sucked. Big time. I even succeeded to install a rat to troll my friends with.

@Koolstr what you describe is not common sense, but (justified) paranoia. The average user needs AV and the fact is, Defender is useless.
Besides, I use Arch as my main OS. The last thing I want to do is fiddle around with sandboxes that 1 time a month I really need Windows.

@franga2000 yes the average user may need it in the end. Unfortunately most people are not as sensical as us techies :(

@Dacexi which av do you use? All antivirus programs I tried love to misbehave and eat up resources for no reason, as well as be generally invasive

@Koolstr Malwarebytes

@Dacexi Ah I actually really like malware bytes, it's good to have. Good to do an occasional scan with imo