Adware Report: Microsoft Windows Defender Review
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Product: Microsoft Windows Defender Beta 2 Price: Currently free Company Info: Microsoft Editor Rating: 1 1/2 stars |  Click for more info |
Pros
+ Free (for now)
+ Additional features allow you to monitor advanced system settings (such as startup files, BHOs, LSPs, and more)
Cons
- Mostly ineffective at removing spyware
- Very slow
- Poor user interface
- Repeatedly bugs the user to remove threats that the program can't remove
- Customer support is self-service only (on internet forums)
- Requires Windows XP SP 2 to run
Microsoft Windows Defender Product Review
Giant Company, once known as a maker of anti-spam products for your inbox, hit it big in December, 2004. Microsoft purchased the company and is now planning on embedding it into their yearly subscription PC Tune Up service to address some of the glaring security issues IE and Windows users face.
In our last review, we asked the big question: will Microsoft's plan to rule the anti-spyware industry work? It seems we have our answer. Windows Defender beta 2 is a poorly executed, seemingly half-complete program that does a very poor job at cleaning up spyware. Seeing as Windows Defender is all they have to show for 18 months of work, we don't see Microsoft being a player in the PC security world any time soon.
We wondered how it was possible to take what was once the #1 anti-spyware program on the market (Giant AntiSpyware) and turn it into a steaming pile of you-know-what. A little digging around at Microsoft turned up the answer. Beta 2 was a complete ground-up rewrite of the original Giant product and can rightfully be considered a version 1.0 product. Apparently there have been some stops and starts in the development and release plan. The initial beta 2 release shipped without signatures (rumor has it, so it wouldn't be late). However, the auto-update function didn't work, leaving hundreds of thousands of users without effective spyware protection. While the current version does remove some spyware, it fails to detect most of it. It also introduces a number of new usability problems and some of the best features of the previous versions have been removed.
Overall, we found installation of the program to be far more trouble than it was worth.
Installation
We had a major problem while installing Windows Defender: it requires Windows SP2 and Windows Installer 3.1 in order to run. This means if you haven't been keeping up with your windows updates or have intentionally chosen not to install SP2 (many programs run more slowly on SP2, for instance), then you are out of luck and will need to use a different product. We don't mind the SP2 requirement, but our Windows installation was running several dozen active spyware processes in memory, so upgrading to SP2 took an entire day of downloading and installing windows updates... hardly user-friendly or convenient.
Furthermore, the program did not work correctly until after a full reboot. It does not inform you that you need to reboot your PC, but you will need to in any case.
Usability
This version of Windows Defender works better than the initial beta release (which removed nothing) but still feels like a beta product. Upon rebooting, we were presented with a large number of popup alert windows informing us of various spyware programs running in memory. This was a positive indication of improvement, but the sheer number of alerts (over a dozen) was annoying. The alerts kept appearing for the same threats each time we rebooted. In addition, many of the spyware programs simply reinstalled themselves after they were disabled.
Windows Defender suffers from the curse of the never ending alert boxes...
The auto-update feature is finally working in the beta, but it appears to run invisibly in the background. There is no status or alert letting you know that an update is in progress, nor is there any way to look for a more recent update.
Another usability problem we noticed is that even after four scans, the program repeatedly prompts the user to reboot in order to finish removing spyware.
While the interface is pleasing to the eye, it's not very usable. The "scan" button is hidden on a toolbar at the top (which we've discovered is very confusing to novice users). The "scan results" screen has been removed altogether so you can no longer see what was removed from your system. The extra system diagnostic tools, perhaps the most useful feature found in beta 1, have been hidden under a layer of links and dropdown boxes. And the program unexpectedly hung several times during our testing procedure.
Windows Defender sports a bland and unhelpful interface
Spyware Removal
The latest version of Windows Defender beta 2 finally removes spyware (the initial release refused to detect or remove anything). Scanning on our machine was quite slow, averaging over 45 minutes per scan. Overall, the program detected 52% of the spyware on our system and disabled 28% of it. It completely removed a meager 3% from our hard drives. These tests indicate a very ineffective anti-spyware product.
Rollback
Windows Defender (presumably) allows you to rollback any changes it makes. This is helpful if you have wiped out spyware that is needed by an otherwise useful program (Real Player and Kazaa are typical examples of software embedded with spyware on your PC that won?t run without it).
Customer Support
What we don't like about this product is Microsoft's lack of customer support. Expect to have to dig through the Microsoft Knowledge Base for answers to your support questions in the future unless you or your company is already paying Microsoft an annual support fee.
Other Options
Microsoft Windows Defender includes a scheduler, but for some reason the real-time "security agents" (another great feature from beta 1) have been completely removed from beta 2. This feature protected against homepage hijacks and drive-by installs, and is a mandatory feature for a modern anti-spyware product.
Buried deep within Windows Defender are a number of useful system explorers that may come in handy should you need to do some serious diagnostics on your PC. For instance, a power-user could use these tools to debug the Windows Layered Service Providers, a common place for spyware to hook into the browser. Unfortunately, the tools seem to stop short of actually being able to do anything. As much as we like the inclusion of these features, this program would feel a lot more integrated if you could use them to fix your system and not just diagnose the problems.
Even obvious features, such as a scan results screen, are buried in the program and are difficult to use. Notice the results window has only three rows, making it difficult to read the many pages of results.
Summary
Windows Defender, currently in beta 2, remains a major disappointment. The current version is not very effective and it remains buggy, slow, and difficult to use. Unless you are an expert computer user who can make use of the additional system diagnostic tools, there's no point in downloading this program at this time.
All articles and reviews are copyright 2004, Gooroo, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Adware Report (http://www.AdwareReport.com) delivers objective news and reviews about the best and the worst spyware removal products.