Warning - Do NOT use norton with windows 10  

Defender CAN scan offline, I just tried although I don't do that often. You don't have to remove Mbam, at least not free version. Defender has grown to be pretty good AV but just like any other one is not made to catch all malware. I haven't used any third party AV for at least a year. I just comb system with Mbam, Adw Cleaner and few others targeting specific threats just before making a regular full system backup.

maranna said:

HI Count Mike
I click my laptop to run Defender offline and the process begins as it should. My desktop which is similar does not respond when I click on the scan off line button.
That is my problem.
Any ideas,
Peter

I'm not sure what could be wrong, maybe wasn't updated right ?
Here's what mine caught since last cleanup:

maranna said:

I wish someone could help because I seem to be the only one with the problem which means something is wrong. Update history is all successful.
SFC is ok as is DISM health.
I cannot think what else to try to fix it as it is part of the OS and cannot be removed too install again.

When you install 3rd party AV it disables Defender and if it's not removed properly it may not restore it right. Every AV I know of has own program to remove it and that works better than normal uninstall.

maranna said:

If you think installing and removing one would help, do you have one in mind.
I notice under Defender settings that if you uncheck the ones listed that would turn Defender off, no? I did try that but maybe not enough. I know Norton and McAfee have their own uninstall tools.

If you had any 3rd party AV and didn't uninstall it with own program, maybe you should install same one and uninstall it same way again. A registry cleanup with Ccleaner or something like that after may help too.

jimbo45 said:

Hi there.

Norton was a joke long before W10 was even THOUGHT OF. !! You don't need ANY A/V on W10 other than the built in Windows defender.

The best defence in any case is YOU the USER.

Adding other modules to the windows kernel on an OS that will probably be changed several times before final release isn't a good idea either.

If you don't trust Ms Windows defender on W10 then simply run W10 as a VM and don't connect it to the internet.

At consumer level there's NOTHING whether paid or free in the AV world that is better than Windows defender. That doesn't mean to say either that Windows defender is the best either - but things change so fast that any reports comparing various systems are LONG OUT OF DATE by the time they are published. At least Windows defender gets updated daily or even more frequently if Ms has to rush out a special fix.

A New virus can appear at ANY time so forget comparison web sites for AV software.

In any case these days the emphasis is on online scamming - which can't be protected against by software.

One thing puzzles me though -- why on earth do you need MBAM as well as Windows defender (or Malware bytes). Malware doesn't always (or rarely these days) means things like viruses.

Malware can be a perfectly innocent Windows program that throws up zillions of popups - if the program appears as a legitimate Windows application how does software like MBAM know it's malware rather than a perfectly ordinary Windows program.

You can better block programs from calling up IE for example by setting rules in the perfectly decent Windows Firewall. IMO that's the way to do it. Only allow legit programs to access the Internet - for example I have some stock tracking programs etc.

A program that calls IE to access the Internet should be blocked unless you know what it's doing - Malwarebytes isn't any good for those types of programs but relies on a database. Preventing Internet access by any but special known applications is easy enough and should be done in your Firewall - and it will always work as it's a Windows Feature (Windows Firewall).

Cheers
jimbo

Agree fully with you there, I have not long ago brought new laptops for home and business use.
All had Windows 10 preinstalled, the first thing I did on all of them was get rid of 3rd party Antivirus, and use Windows Defender.
I may have invalidated the guarantee but at least I know, and have peace of mind that I wont have any trouble with 3rd party blocking or crashing the laptops.
They all update 2-3 times a day depending if a bug is found and they all scan and been clear up to now of any virus etc.
So for me NO 3rd Party at all