Windows Defender officially arrived on the market with Windows 8, but previously it was already available in previous versions of Windows under the name Microsoft Security Essentials, although it did not include the detection of antivirus, spyware, malware and more.
This application / service, on its own merits, has become an excellent tool to always have our Windows 10 computer protected. Although Microsoft has never wanted to call it an antivirus, Windows Defender is a full-fledged antivirus, in fact, it is one of the best that we can currently find on the market and that can be disabled.
When Microsoft released Windows 10, Windows Defender reached adulthood, and became a serious threat to major antivirus application developersIn fact, some of them expressed their discomfort before the European Union to investigate the matter, an investigation that ultimately did not take place.
What is Windows Defender
Windows Defender offers real-time protection of all the processes that run on our computerWhether they are manual downloads of applications at the user's request, automatic downloads carried out by some web pages with malicious intentions, it analyzes the registry of our computer to detect unwanted changes, it monitors the applications that are running in the background ... Windows Defender does the same functions than any other antivirus.
In addition to monitoring in real time all the activity that develops in our team, it also analyzes the files that we run on our computer, files that when installed, can add some type of malicious software to our computer, software that can steal our data, install unwanted applications, encrypt the files on our computer ...
All the antivirus that we can find currently on the market, offer us the same benefits in exchange for an annual fee, by offering the same benefits, among which are included automatic database updates, real-time monitoring of activity of our team, analysis of compressed files ...
A problem associated with third-party antivirus is that they always affect the performance of the computers, since they are not implemented natively in the operating system, as Windows Defender is. Furthermore, a study published just over a year ago stated that Windows Defender offered us the same protection as any other similar application.
Why disable Windows Defender
There are only two reasons for wanting to disable Windows Defender, since we cannot uninstall it from the system: install applications from unknown sources (downloads from the internet without the corresponding license) and use third-party antivirus applications.
These are the only two reasons that can force us to deactivate Windows Defender. In the case of wanting to install applications without their corresponding license, We must deactivate Windows Defender previously if we do not want Windows to block the execution of the application that generates the codes.
If we want to install another antivirus, first of all we must deactivate the native Windows antivirus, since two antivirus can not run simultaneously on a computer. Well, they can be done, but both the stability of the system and its performance are seriously affected.
Risks of disabling Windows Defender
Depending on the web pages that we visit and the applications that we download on our equipment, disabling Windows Defender can be a serious problem for the user, since unless we have deactivated it to install another antivirus, our computer will be vulnerable to any threat.
How to disable Windows Defender
To deactivate Windows Defender, we have at our disposal two different methods: through the Windows configuration options or using a third-party application. From Technology Guides we always recommend use native method and not install third-party applications that allow us to perform the same functions that we already have available in the system.
Disable Windows Defender from Windows 10
The first thing to do, once we are aware of the risks involved in disabling Windows Defender, is to access the Windows 10 configuration options through the Windows key + i keyboard shortcut.
- Next, click on Update and security.
- Within Update and security, in the left column click on Windows security.
- Next, we go to the right column and click on Open Windows Security.
- In the new window that appears, we have to click on Virus and threat protection.
- In the right column, we scroll a little down to the section Anti-virus settings and protection againstto threats.
- Once again we go to the column of the new window that is displayed and deactivate the box Real-time protection.
From this moment on, Windows 10 will send us notifications informing us that we have deactivated real-time protection against viruses, begging us to activate it again if we want our team to remain protected.
Disable Windows Defender with Defender Control
Defend Controll is a simple application that allows us to activate and deactivate Windows Defender without having to go into the Windows 10 menu configuration options. When executing the application, we must click on the Deactivate Windows Denfender button so that the native Windows 10 antivirus allows to do their job and our team is vulnerable to any activity.