Is Windows Defender enough?

I'm fairly new to Windows 10, but so far, I like it. I have installed it on my laptop which formerly had Windows 8, then 8.1. I also have it on a Dell Inspiron netbook which formerly had had Windows 7 Starter. The netbook is doing far better than I had expected. I have been running ESET smart security on both of these. On the laptop, Windows Defender is off and ESET is handling the security, as it is supposed to do. On the netbook, however, I am getting constant notifications that there is no antivirus and Defender is off and needs to be on or my computer is at risk. Yet by all appearances, ESET is working normally. The netbook detects the ESET firewall, but behaves as though there were no antivirus.

This has me wondering if Defender would provide sufficient protection. I do intend to upgrade the RAM on the netbook soon, but I still think the fewer things I have running on it, the better. I did have Malwarebytes (paid for version) on the netbook, but I removed it a while ago because the netbook was just so bogged down it was almost unusable. The netbook hasn't been getting a lot of use because of its slowness, but it's doing so much better with Windows 10, such that it might see more use in the future.

I found Malwarebytes to be quite a memory hog in the past...if one is thinking a Defender/Malwarebytes combo.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. :)

I forgot to mention that I run Hitman Pro manually.

Thank you, BunnyJ.

I uninstalled ESET Smart Security, did the fix to have the Defender icon stay in my taskbar (I remember this being an issue with MSE on an XP laptop I had a few years ago as well). The little netbook is running better than it ever has.

Agreed. WD + added protection layers (MBAE, Hitman, etc) is more than enough.

Very interesting thread. I'm wondering if what you call your netbook is the Dell Inspiron Mini? If you get this would you mind letting me know? That's what my husband has and it gives him no end of frustration--Windows 7 Starter as well. It is becoming quite ancient and runs so very slowly that he rarely uses it tho tries to at least update our Norton 360 Virus Protection on it. Your post makes me wonder if he should try to install W 10 on his machine. Perhaps, (could we be so lucky?) it might actually begin to work well!

Smiley1 said:

Thank you, BunnyJ.

I uninstalled ESET Smart Security, did the fix to have the Defender icon stay in my taskbar (I remember this being an issue with MSE on an XP laptop I had a few years ago as well). The little netbook is running better than it ever has.

What did you exactly do to fix this? I have to manually start Windows Defender still...

I followed the instructions here, option 2:

Windows Defender Notification Area Icon - Hide or Show in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

Windows Defender was running, it's just that the icon wasn't showing and I didn't like that.

Smiley1 said:

I followed the instructions here, option 2:

Windows Defender Notification Area Icon - Hide or Show in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

Windows Defender was running, it's just that the icon wasn't showing and I didn't like that.

Thanks a lot!