Windows Defender

Do you leave Defender enabled and forego revenue from a 3rd party?

  • Yes

    Votes: 6 37.5%

  • No

    Votes: 10 62.5%
  • Total voters
    16
  • Poll closed .
GTP

GTP

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Location
Adelaide, Australia
I see Microsoft are shoving Defender down users throats! Starting to appear on taskbars alongside the AV I installed. Consequently I'm being asked what it is by customers.
Well, now I cant lie to them so I explain what it is/does. Then brace for the inevitable responce; "Then why am I paying for Emsisoft?"
Microsoft are making it harder to disable it by hiding the settings.
Luckily my scripts still work to get rid of it, but I can see one of my future revenue streams drying up thanks to this garbage.
Apart from the serious privacy issues and it's hell bent desire to connect to every device within reach in my workshop, it's one more reason why I will never use Windows 10.
 
It's not a competition between Defender v Emsisoft. My post was about Microsoft forcing people to use Defender: IE taking away peoples choice and limiting the ability to disable it. Plus the impact on one of my main revenue streams,
I have clients with Windows 10 that use ESET, Mcaffee, Norton etc. Are we going to throw up Av Comapratives for them as well?
 
Barcelona said:
I have clients with Windows 10 that use ESET, Mcaffee, Norton etc. Are we going to throw up Av Comapratives for them as well?
Click to expand...

My point was this: In the past I have used AVC simply as a tool to illustrate to my customers who believe that Defender is enough protection. In the very recent past I could always count on Defender to fare poorly in test results in addition to McAfee (and Norton does not even submit their product for testing) as those are the three products I am often competing with to sell a premium solution. Of course, AVC is not the be all end all, however it is a reputable and trusted source of unbiased information on the continued effectiveness of various AV products. I use it as a tool as information from a neutral third party takes the pressure off me as a vendor in my customers eyes and the selling of the AV product is seen less as a hard sell and more as a benefit.

I've seen Defender place higher and higher over the past few months, and while I disagree with MS forcing it down consumers throats, it may be time to give it a second look as we all did when it was first acquired by MS years ago and it was the best thing on the market for a time.

I of course, always want to sell more and make money in my business. However, I never want to sell a product that is tested consistently as not benefiting the customer. The minute the premium AV that I resell is no longer consistently ranking highly in third party tests is the minute I drop it and I'll eat the licenses I have remaining rather than sell crap. And if it comes to the point where Defender is meeting the needs of a percentage of my customers better than a solution I resell I will recommend they stick with Defender.
 
I have customers that call me daily for a virus removal that use MSD. Heres how I up-sell Emsisoft.

"I see you have Microsoft Defender and although it is a viable option, you could potentially gain better security with our managed anti-malware from Emsisoft. Its only $59/yr. If you wish to purchase it, you'll get a 20% discount off today's service. If you incur a virus during the year, you'll receive a 25% discount off our virus removal service along with 10% discount on any other service. We also install our free monitoring software that will alert you of any issues with you computer so you can contact us easily if you wish"

90% of the time, its a sale. Now on new machines, re-installs, etc., I give the client an option to either go with the built in AV or go with managed AV at the same deal, $59/yr and 25% discount off any subsequent removal during the term and 10% off all other services.

The keywords in my statement is discount and free. It really is designed to give the illusion that they are getting more for the price they are paying. However in any situation, I gain more in revenue of potential jobs than what I would lose over the years term.
 
Computer Bloke said:
Can I suggest adding "Sometimes" as an option to your poll?

Seriously, for some users a paid AV product is as much use as an anti-radiation sticker to stop WiFi frying their brains. We happily forgo that income, too!
Click to expand...
I could... but I'm only interested in the "yes" or "no".:)
 
occsean said:
My point was this: In the past I have used AVC simply as a tool to illustrate to my customers who believe that Defender is enough protection. In the very recent past I could always count on Defender to fare poorly in test results in addition to McAfee (and Norton does not even submit their product for testing) as those are the three products I am often competing with to sell a premium solution. Of course, AVC is not the be all end all, however it is a reputable and trusted source of unbiased information on the continued effectiveness of various AV products. I use it as a tool as information from a neutral third party takes the pressure off me as a vendor in my customers eyes and the selling of the AV product is seen less as a hard sell and more as a benefit.

I've seen Defender place higher and higher over the past few months, and while I disagree with MS forcing it down consumers throats, it may be time to give it a second look as we all did when it was first acquired by MS years ago and it was the best thing on the market for a time.

I of course, always want to sell more and make money in my business. However, I never want to sell a product that is tested consistently as not benefiting the customer. The minute the premium AV that I resell is no longer consistently ranking highly in third party tests is the minute I drop it and I'll eat the licenses I have remaining rather than sell crap. And if it comes to the point where Defender is meeting the needs of a percentage of my customers better than a solution I resell I will recommend they stick with Defender.
Click to expand...
But with all due respect to your opinion, "giving it a second look" would mean foregoing the revenue from the integration with Kabuto, as well as the many many more sold as standalone copies.
Notwithstanding your observation of "Defender placing higher and higher" how does my choice of AV product not benefit the customer?
From the many hundreds of installs I've done none have returned with an infection, though ( obviously I can't check the standalone installs) the managed clients regularly have an alert to a malware being quarantined.
This suggests to me that the product works, it's subjective whether "product x" would do a better job but in my situation, it's irrelevant.
Although I have no proof of any bias, I have wondered why some AV companies do not submit their software to AV Comparatives.
 
If people don't want to pay but want a free av, I go with windows defender because it's lightweight and stays out of your way without any annoying upgrade popups or other things.
 
Metanis said:
There's not a damn thing wrong with Windows Defender if you want to make sure you don't get infected with last year's virus.
Click to expand...

LMAO Amen!

New System Setups, I offer to bundle in the cost of the Emsisoft AV to them. Then explain it is good for 1 year and after that it will need to be renewed. I really don't have any problems with clients going for that and not renewing their license when the time comes. In the instances that there have been issues with Emsisosft having a bug or not updating I remote in and take care of the issue. I stand behind the product.

Recently I did have a couple customers that I offered them the Paid Solution but they wanted something Free. I said "I don't recommend Free but Microsoft does have one built in. If that is what you want I will leave that there, but please understand if any infections occur that will be completely billable for a clean up." I notate that on the ticket and make sure they see that and sign it before I close it out.

Ultimately we are offering a recommendation to the client, whether they end up accepting it or not is entirely up to them.

I don't like to be constantly sold on stuff, and I am looking at that from the perspective of a client. But when somewhere offers a recommendation and is honest about it, I will definitely listen and give it some though. I just want to provide the same for my clients.
 
Computer Bloke said:
Then please take my "Yes" vote to mean "Yes, when it's the best choice for the client".

We're all in business to make money but that doesn't have to mean putting profit ahead of everything else. Our clients trust us (and pay us) to use our knowledge, skills and experience to provide them with the most appropriate solutions to their problems, not the solutions which make us the most money. Sometimes that means we recommend something which doesn't make us as much as a less-suitable alternative would, and that's perfectly OK - it's the correct and professional thing to do, and why our clients trust us in the first place.
Click to expand...
Exactly this. It all comes down to trust - and my clients trust me to give them what I believe is a suitable AV that I personally use and recommend. Emsisoft has been a solid product that performs well and gives my clients peace of mind. That makes them happy, which makes me happy.
I was selling Emsisoft before I signed up to Kabuto. It was a fortunate circumstance that Kabuto integrates Emsisoft as it's managed AV.
But it's not about Emsisoft or any other alternative to Defender.
And please don't think that I am "just in it for the money!" I've been in business for twenty years. I've built my business on honesty and integrity. My clients know that, that's why they keep coming back.
I am not that hard nosed that I don't recognise that what I recommend may not suit everyone and in those circumstances I am only too happy to either let them choose an alternative, or just go with Defender on their Windows 10 machine.
 
This most is mostly for residential, which we pretty much avoid. But...for the few times that we do, it's a pretty easy sell if we want the client to be on our managed system.

Let's remember..just about all AV programs are between 95-99% effective...including Defender. So I don't care which AV you're drinking the cool-aid from and fanboi'ing...none are 100%, period

Once you install a 3rd party AV...Windows Defender properly disables itself. Once you uninstall a 3rd party within a few minutes Defender re-enables itself. This process is easy to see and clear.

Businesses on our MSP plan want a managed AV so we have no problem at all pushing our Bitdefender via N-Able.
The reasons for "paid" AV aren't all that much better for protection, we all know malware now is web based, and end user driven (let's look at ransomware). The reason for MSP based AV programs is purely the integration into our RMM tools for deployment/configuration/alerting/scheduling...and yes I want to make some money from it.

https://www.av-comparatives.org/dynamic-tests/ <==look at the past 6 months of tests..I dare ya!

Windows Defender has been more effective in the past year..than prior years. Yes two or three years ago it was doing very poorly..but...all someone has to do is spent a couple of minutes at AV-Comparatives to see the past 6 months or so..it's been at least middle of the pack. For residential users...I'm fine with it. You want to protect residential users some more setup things that actually work..like safe DNS services, and keeping web players updated (or educate them on it), put AdBlockers in their browser, use a more malware-resistent browser with a sandbox like Chrome.
 
I prefer to have 3rd party AV on client systems but I leave it to them after all if they get infected it is just another job down the road. I reiterate to them that no solution is 100% but will often encourage them to get a 3rd party solution as it will usually do more than windows does on its own.
 
I use Windows Defender alongside Emsisoft if they notice it. It's near-nothing for using resources and I tell them it's part of Windows but it ensures windows is secure, but Emsisoft deals with the big boys and it's always a good thing to have redundancy. I just had a computer on my bench which was still running Windows 10 ver 1511. - installed Creator's update (which I have to say is a nice update), and upsold them for managed AV only with Kabuto set to basic. It's sitting there with defender and Emsisoft. I'm not sure if there is any issues with it slowing the system down though. I have no problems with both running on my own desktop so far.
 
Computer Bloke said:
That's only a legitimate answer if you can demonstrate that the infection that was missed by Windows Defender would have been caught by the Emsisoft version that was available at the time.

Good luck with that.
Click to expand...

You're over thinking it. It doesn't matter whether another antivirus would have caught it or not. What matters is that Defender did NOT catch it, so it's not adequate protection. You don't have to prove that something else is better in order for someone to realize that another thing is crap.
 
So Defender does not detect Emsisoft...and stays running? Normally, by default, Windows will disable Defender once Windows detects a 3rd party AV.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...rd-party/37c133c8-c779-4336-b48a-4390dbcc5ba1

Having 2x antivirus programs running real time at the same time is not best practice..they can step on each others toes and interfere with each other, even rendering each other rather useless. If not cause huge performance loss and other possible conflicts.
 
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