Google Chrome Engineer Says Windows Defender 'the Only Well Behaved Antivirus', Cites 'Tons of Empirical Data' (onmsft.com)

Days after former Firefox developer Robert O'Callahan said that antivirus security suites are not necessary, and AV vendors are of little help. A Google Chrome engineer has echoed the same message, reaffirming that Microsoft's built-in software is indeed the most well-behaved security suite. From a report: Apparently the disdain for 3rd party AV solutions runs deep amongst browser developers, as in response to the threads a Google engineer, Justin Schuh, had this to say: "Browser makers don't complain about Microsoft Defender because we have tons of empirical data showing that it's the only well behaved AV."

Comments

I'd agree

[Anonymous Coward]

I tend to agree. I used to have third party anti-virus on the wife's machine and the kids' machine, but really the most effective malware prevention is to take away root/admin privileges altogether. Anti-virus doesn't protect against the stupidity of users. If they install malware, no anti-virus will stop them. Almost everything that the anti-virus software caught was benign and were false alarms. And despite being useless, the crap software was a resource hog.

I have since uninstalled anti-virus. I will do an occasional malware bytes scan, but have done so less and less frequently as I find little but tracking cookies.

So, yes, I agree with this report.

Conflict of interest

[sjbe]

The problem is that every company other than Microsoft has a built in conflict of interest. The AV software companies profit motives are not aligned with providing a good user experience. A good anti-virus system should be nearly invisible. Hard to convince customers to pony up a lot of money for security software unless you are always in their face and an anti-malware system that does this inherently results a bad product. Worse they have to keep tacking on extra "features" and products to convince customers their product is better than the next guys. Their business model is based on scaring customers so they buy their product based on perceptions rather than actually keeping them safe.

Re:Disable ad-blocker for a paragraph of twitter c

[AmiMoJo]

These engineers forgot the most effective, powerful anti-virus product that is an absolutely essential install; the ad blocker.

Use GNU/Linux

[zakzor]

I don't use any AV software. I don't need to. I have ClamAV in a live session for customers. And that way there's no files locked.

Re: MicroShaft

[MightyMartian]

I think it's a bit more than just "Microsoft unfair advantage". Other AV products have always been monstrously bloated affairs, and have become all the worse over then last decade as they throw all kinds of other shit like firewalls and the like in. Products like mcafee and Norton have become almost as bad as the disease they purport to treat. So far as I can tell, Defender really doesn't do much more than sniff out viruses and malware, and while I agree Microsoft's insider knowledge probably gives it a bit of an edge, I think the narrower intent of the software has a lot to do with its better performance.