Is windows defender crap? I got infected by a bunch of trojan keloggers the other month which ended with me being the victim of credit card fraud, and yet windows defender merrily went pootling on allowing all this to happen without even a hint that it had detected something.

Trend micro's housecall, of which I usually used to run every other week, on the other hand picked up on the crap the second I ran it and promptly cleaned it (but by then it was too late). After that I installed nod32 and even that picked up on when I was being infected by the same trojans (it was an exploit in java where by when you visited an infected website, java based trojan keloggers would be silently downloaded to your comp and would log whatever you typed into the browser).

Housecall found them, nod32 found them... Windows Defender didn't even know they existed.

I've still got it installed now, and luckily my credit card fraud happened to benefit me more than it did defraud me, but I do wonder... Is windows defender really that crap? I know its mainly only for spyware but, keyloggers are spyware aren't they? even after the threat became widely open knowledge and the security updates began rolling out, defender still didn't pick up on them (I deliberately infected my computer then did a defender scan just to see if it would).

Was a big f---ing idiot for trusting that software? Or was I just unlucky... and it does actually work?

Windows is not known for having the best antivirus or anti-spyware programs. If I were you I would download spybot S&D and also lavasoft ad-aware se. Also I would go out and buy Kaspersky Internet Security, best known firewall and antivirus out there, this would limit anything happening to you. Also just to be on the safe side you might want to do a full format on the infected computer and re-install your OS. Those three programs are what I use, and I haven't had any credit card fraud or keyloggers on my computers. Also with ad-aware se 1.06 you might want to do a scan once a week so that it picks up the majority of the spyware that gets on your computer. Spybot, immunize your system. Kaspersky run a full scan once a month. Also windows firewall is crap.

Jim R

Defender was a great security application when Micro$oft purchased Giant. It has been on a downhill slide ever since. Get rid of it, there are apps out there that will do the job better...