What is the trustworthiness of Windows 11 Defender's full scan feature?
What is the trustworthiness of Windows 11 Defender's full scan feature?
I was searching for a fresh wallpaper for my brand-new Asus TUF A15 laptop. Attempted to visit one of those hosting sites, which kept requiring me to confirm a captcha and enable notifications—things I (mistakenly) did. The process just wouldn’t stop, so I gave up and got the wallpaper from another source.
Spent half an hour playing Cyberpunk and switching tabs to check for messages, only to have fake "VIRUS ALERT" pop-ups appear in the sidebar. Right away I went into Chrome settings to remove the offending site’s permissions, but popups blocked the area. I clicked the “X” on one tab to clear space.
That didn’t work. A new Chrome tab opened trying to load a page, which closed instantly. After revoking all permissions from the problematic site, everything disappeared—but I remained concerned. Windows Defender ran a full scan, taking roughly 30 minutes, and found no threats.
My concern is whether this method is trustworthy. If the PC still works fine, should I worry?
download and install malwarebytes, but only two features last about two weeks before it demands payment, though you can use the free version without them. After a scan, if anything is detected, quarantine and delete it, repeating until the program no longer finds anything. This happens because some items may be in segments and not always identified or removed on the first attempts.
MB didn't detect anything during the full scan either. Seems like I'm safe.
Other trustworthy second opinion scanners are frequently employed for cleanup on Malware Removal Help forums on BleepingComputer and MalwareTip. ESET online scanner is noted for being thorough despite its slower speed, while Sophos scan and clean offers speed with a secondary role in confirming malware incidents.
If neither Windows Defender nor Malwarebytes detects anything, it's fine. You might also clear the cache and cookies in Chrome to ensure no traces remain from the site.
Yup did that too. It was all about scorched earth. This situation is pretty embarrassing for me since I've always believed in the saying "best AV is common sense." Back then, I learned a lot from downloading questionable Minecraft mods and never clicking on links. I suspect the issue here was that it looked like a captcha I had never encountered before. Lesson learned, I suppose.
I notice you received a strong "web page" alert that most people can easily dismiss by closing it. The problem arises when trying to interact with the contact or proceed button. Even then, handling such situations can feel unsettling. I tend to appreciate Windows Defender and its performance, especially when paired with an elevated UAC or user level. Besides what you said about normal browsing, I don’t usually run into trouble—at least not that I’m aware of. With that in mind, if I really suspect something is wrong, I’m not afraid to take decisive action. I’ve seen many malware scanners return false positives, and often they turn out to be nothing at all.
Even the most attentive individual can be misled. I often find myself chuckling at those who claim they don’t bother with antimalware because they’re “smart” enough to avoid suspicious links or risky sites (which is ironic since someone who thinks this way clearly isn’t as clever as they believe). Scammers and hackers put in a lot of effort to make their content appear trustworthy, making total safety difficult.
Browser notification settings can be quite frustrating. It’s easy for a malicious site to trick you into enabling it without your permission, then send fake alerts that prompt you to click and download harmful files. Recently, one of my colleagues fell victim to this—he simply clicked on an interesting news article and began receiving fake virus warnings. Luckily, he warned us beforehand, allowing me to disable the notifications and clear the browser.
Just a reminder: when encountering a suspicious window, don’t try to close it by clicking the “x” in the corner. Instead, close it from the task bar (right-click and choose “close”) or use the task manager (terminate all web browser processes).