UKC

I've just taken delivery of a new PC to replace my old steam powered machine and it comes with Windows 8.1
As I understand it, 8.1 has the old security essentials antivirus software included in with Windows defender.
Is Windows defender therefore both an antivirus and antimalware programme so I don't need to download either?
And if so, is it any good or are there better ones I should consider?

Likewise, is Windows firewall adequate?

In reply to pec: They are both pretty good and relatively lightweight. Still with them and use a bit of common sense and you should be fine.

In reply to pec:

Avast is very good.

In reply to pec:

I agree that the Windows stuff works well, I use it on my Windows 7 PCs with no issue and they have caught things when I've managed to download dodgy files

I also have Malwarebytse Anti-Malware (free version) installed which only scans when I want it to as an extra defence just in case.

I recommend using the PC with a user account and if you want to install anything it asks for an Administrator password to do so, this will stop anything sneaking itself in in the background.

In reply to pec:

I currently use the standard windows 8.1 setup and run SAS free version occasionally, but have a read of http://www.techsupportalert.com/pc/security-tools.html

In reply to pec:

Thanks for the replies. I'll probably go with the built in microsoft stuff at first and see how it goes. Presumably it won't cause the computer to grind to a halt like AVG does.

Re Malwarebytes, do you use this to find things if you think your computer might have an infection that got through the system and can this run in addition to the microsoft stuff unlike firewalls where you can't have two?

Finally, lots of people seem to rate Firefox or Chrome over IE. I've tried Firefox recently and haven't found it any better than IE, just a bit different. What am I missing here?

Thanks again.

In reply to pec:


Yes