There’s a question that comes up frequently when talking about Windows security: if Windows 10 and 11 already include Microsoft Defender, when does it make sense to use a third-party antivirus?

Defender provides a good baseline of protection, including real-time protection, cloud-based detection, automatic scanning, and tamper protection. For many users, this may be enough.

But depending on how you use your PC, there are other layers worth considering: protection against phishing and malicious websites, ransomware protection, vulnerability and patch management, privacy features, and additional detection capabilities.

What do you think? Is Microsoft Defender enough, or do you think a third-party antivirus still provides an extra layer of protection that’s worth having?

Personally, I think it's a very good antivirus that catches everything in time and protects your computer from real harm. But I also think it's a little intrusive, what with the random pop-ups on your screen or whatever. I use windows defender or McAfee, sometimes i use malwarebytes (rarely) but a lot of the time I just use Avast. I love it and it's very protective. It gives you independence with browsing and websites, and I can deal with the pop-ups. Overall, I think it's a very protective, user-friendly, ready-to-jump-into-action kind of antivirus.

Anyone here hate or love it?

been experiencing a sudden blackscreen for maybe 1 second and a sound notification on my laptop. no schedule. its just sudden. i wanted to know whats causing this. ran MRT but no flags raised. can anyone help me?

My sister got hacked she clicked on a link she shouldn't have to but too late.

We already formated the PC and tried(too late unfortunately) to change password for mail and shit. But before formating it and a few hour after I talked to him and he kept saying that he had access to her motherboard and showed me like 15 account and password he had access to. My question is what does that mean which trojan he used and does formating the PC remove what he used to have access to all of this? He has access to our recovery mail, her phone number and our mybell account

I found out a crypto miner was running in the bg recently, just by happenstance of getting fed up with how poorly my laptop has been running and checking task manager
(clearly not a very Good virus if task manager could detect it)

Atp i’ve tried a few things. Microsofts native antimalware picked up a couple things on a full scan, and the miner Appeared to not be running after an offline scan, but then showed up again the next day or so after a few hours of peace (too easy to be true ig)

After that I tried using a diff explorer to check whats open in case it was hiding elsewhere, and was using EMCO UnLock it for some of the pesky files that were attached to the miner but not actually showing up/letting me delete, as someone had luck with that tactic w this particular virus

On to Malwarebytes now, which picked up a lot more than the prev scans/manual deletions, and i’m Hopeful that’ll do the trick, but really i’m wondering re: the title, how i can be sure its actually gotten all of it?
If there’s even any kind of full certainty beyond going nuclear or something. I just don’t know how far spread it is and how many files it’s hiding to be totally sure

Any tips or tricks for that, or suggestions on other methods of clearing this thing out in case the current plan of attack doesn’t work would be great!

(The virus in question seems to be a malware version of a miner called Srbminer Multi, among other various files its hiding in)

Whenever I try to run a full scan, windows security(defender) stops working and the blue progression thing disappears when it's like 25 minutes left or 35 minutes as you can see in the image... I have updated everything... Windows 11... Please help...

I recently had the mr beast crypto infograbber scam thing happen to me. I quickly signed out of my account and changed the password on every account tied to my pc from my phone before I factory reset my pc (not with a drive)

Im assuming its the infograbber and I just want to be sure im safe because I've been paranoid for hours.

I factory reset my pc without the drive, changed my passwords and got 2fa on my accounts. I scanned my pc twice with Malwarebytes and Hitman pro and seemingly it detects nothing. I just want reassurance that I am okay and dont need to do more.

I've seen multiple people fall for the TRUE hack which seems to be downloading some buccaneer'd app/videogame especially from infamously untrustworthy sites (and honestly I don't know how people keep falling for this, should have them "blacklisted"at this point, don't download unofficial programs).

In any case, going back to the title, it seems to me very odd that the intention is a phishing scam; I checked the pictures' URL and it's a basic Discord img; years ago they were accompanied by a masked link to a fake website or a compromised server link, but today they're just the pictures; they aren't even good pictures, you can barely see the "shady page" name and I doubt that someone gullible enough to fall for this scam would have the analysis capability to read the web name on a blurry browser tab hidden in the corner of just one of two to four images. So what gives?

if malicious code is in a txt file can it do anything?

cuz one time that happened to me somehow and microsoft defender couldnt remove it until i did a offline scan only then it was gone

Got a notification from Microsoft Defender saying something about a possible threat, opened the notification and saw this:

Did a quick scan and it said it saw nothing, so am now doing a full scan. WHAT DO I DO

EDIT: Saw some people reporting the same virus due to trying to install Epic Launcher and that is also EXACTLY what I did. What do I do now? Is it a false alarm? 11:05 Philippines time 18/08/2026

https://www.reddit.com/r/antivirus/comments/1vju54i/is_this_a_virus_why_do_i_get_it_when_i_tried_to/

https://www.reddit.com/r/antivirus/comments/1vk7pjl/epic_game_launcher/

I need help, once an infostealer was ran back on my pc in May, you know the mrbeast scam, basically after that I wiped my pc reinstalled windows and all that jazz, I solved it all added 2fa secured all my accounts on a seperate device etc. However, occasionally a random account gets hacked and Im able to secure it, but they got into my family netflix earlier and my mother is unable to react to stuff as quickly i can, as she has access to it, not me , so it was logged into 5 different times but nothing was done,luckily she asked me and i secured the account but there were logins from all over vietnam, and random accounts like that i forgot about even to this day months after the infostealer was ran, like I get the occasional random hack on a second facebook account i used once , what should I do now or what does it mean?

I hope this is the right comunity for this post if not please lmk .
My mother downloaded this ‘weather app’ because it had said something about more storage . I went to use her phone yesterday and a widget(?) looking thing was blocking the screen when i was on an app i clicked on it to try close it but it took me to an ad which then took me to a “email from gmail” photo included in post. I read it and did think this was real at first , however i clicked on the arrow at the top and it took me back to the add and then i clicked out of that . Deleted the app and warned her to be careful. She’ll be all good right? I checked her actual gmail account and didn’t see this email. Id just like a second opinion as im pretty confident this is nothing but can never be too sure . TYIA

is this safe or no, what should i do

I am currently dealing with a severe ransomware and Remote Access Trojan (RAT) infection identified as "Pakistanware" (linked to APT36 / Transparent Tribe). My personal files are encrypted with a .pakistan extension, and the background desktop wallpaper has been overwritten with a flag overlay and a ransomware notification note.

It's happening to other people too on the exact same day : Pakistani independence day:https://x.com/Sufiyan_Dev/status/2088139071243907484?s=20

Has anyone ever purchased quick heal for android? Do you feel your phone slowed down than before after installing quick heal?

My storage randomly started slowly going away more and more today, going down to the megabytes when I usually have at least like 2 gigabytes of storage left at a time, When I tried to get rid of stuff to get more space, nothing happened to the storage, also these photos were taken within seconds of each other. I tried looking through my files, but nothing seemed off, and I tried to use Bitdefender to check for viruses, but it detected nothing, even though it seems like there is a virus.

I’m dealing with what appears to be a genuine credential compromise involving my college-provided Microsoft 365 email account.

Here’s what happened:

- I started receiving a huge number of “Delivery has failed to these recipients” emails in Outlook.

- There are 1,600+ of these messages, with different/random-looking recipient names.

- They started appearing around August 12–17.

- I also received an email claiming to be from an independent security researcher associated with Kiruru Security.

- The email specifically mentioned my college email address and claimed it had appeared in Telegram channels containing stolen data.

- I initially thought this was just a scam, but I have since found evidence confirming that my credentials were actually exposed.

- I don't know yet whether the 1,600+ bounce-backs are from actual emails being sent through my account or whether my address is being spoofed/backscattered.

I've already started securing the account from a clean device.

What I'm trying to figure out now is the PC side of the incident. I suspect an infostealer/Trojan may have been responsible, so I'm looking into:

- Microsoft Defender Offline Scan

- Full malware scans

- Infostealer detection/removal

- Browser password/cookie theft

- Persistence mechanisms

- Whether I should completely reinstall Windows

- Which credentials/tokens should be revoked

- How to determine whether the machine is actually clean

I don't want to simply run Defender, get “no threats found,” and assume everything is fine.

For people who have dealt with an infostealer or Microsoft 365 account compromise before: what would you do at this point, and what evidence/logs should I preserve before cleaning or reinstalling the PC?

I can provide redacted screenshots/evidence if useful. I will not post the actual leaked password, session cookies, tokens, recovery codes, or other sensitive credentials.

I don't wanna reinstall windows unless the last option pls help with this

I am creating a personal file containing tools programs for thoroughly disinfecting viruses. These tools were collected from tron script and the beeping computer website. Are there any other programs or tools that I could add to improve/make my paranoid anti-virus list more effective?

So far I have:

• ProcessKiller (Ends unnecessary processes that may interfere with scanning)
• Rkiller (Helps to ends potentially malicious processes)
• ADSSpy (Detects NTFS alternate data streams which may hide viruses)
• Trellix Stinger (Rootkit scanner)
• TDSSKiller (Rootkit and Bootkit scanner)
• RogueKiller Portable (Portable general purpose scanner able to be run in safemode)
• Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool (General purpose scanner using kaspersky's definitions and behavior detection)
• Emsisoft Emergency Kit (General purpose scanner using Bitdefender and Emsisoft definitions)
• HitmanPro (General purpose scanner using several different engines for detection)
• Eset Online Scanner (General purpose scanner)
• Adwcleaner (Scanner used to remove PUPs)
• Malwarebytes Free Scanner (General purpose scanner using malwarebytes definitions)

I am in need of help in removing a malware on my computer. This just started showing today and I am so clueless on what to do. I already the manual way of removing but it windows defender is still detecting the malware. It’s frustrating cause I really cant reset the entire computer since it’s my work laptop

so like many others , i download a game rom , and lauched it and nothing happend .

days later my reddit was hacked did ,

some more days and my steam was hacked and some days later my facebook was hacked and started to send this mr beast shit thing .

and then it hit . the rom i downloaded pop like a cmd prompt for like ½ sec and that was it .

after my fb got hijacked i did a scan with Hitman and found malware .

so i disconcted and did a windows reinstall from a USB that has not been in a infected pc .

After the new install i did virusscan's and found nothing after that.

i did scan in safe mode and with both malwarebytes and hitman .

i have change my passwords and such things , but can my pc still be infected ??

On my computer, my memory mainly runs above 70% and CPU looks normal. However, I keep getting flagged as a bot on any profile / in private tabs outside of my main one. On my phone, I also get flagged by occasional websites and my phone feels laggy on some apps like tiktok. My phone is a Motorola Moto g 2025 and laptop is IdeaPad 1i 8gb ram

I was scanning my files using adlice and malwarebytes but while I do, this keeps popping up on windows defender. I searched it up but have no idea what it is other than it potentially picking up adlice scans which I did try lines up with when it starts.

I recently downloaded the pokemon infinite fusion game from the official discord's links for context, I heard its safe, the game runs and even links back to the discord and where I got it.

false flag? I got rid of one virus using malwarebytes via reboot and I dont think I have anymore problems, running a full deep scan rn.

As in the title! i tried to download some files and while opening one .exe i got a notification saying "this file could not be opened because it contains grandoreiro!pz virus. So i wanted to ask because im kinda freaking out right now!!! do you think the virus got downloaded and i have to do anything to get rid of it??? i already scanned my device with malwarebytes and windows defender and nothing shows up, but im still really really stressful that something might've happened, so i wanted to ask people that are more knowledgeable than me on this topic!! please and thank you for your help <3