Name: Microsoft Defender: Security
Rating: 4.57334 (7397 reviews)

User Reviews for Microsoft Defender: Security

4.57 out of 5

7.4K Ratings

3 years ago, Appledudething

READ: Battery Usage and link scans and network usage

I’ve seen a significant amount of reviews complaining about “High battery usage” and “5k links?? I only used one app!” iOS tracks “battery usage” based on network activity, and because this acts as a VPN, yes, it will show high battery usage, but in reality it’s not. Let’s say Facebook used 10% battery, and Instagram used 15% battery, after installing this app, you’d see iOS report that this app used 25% of your battery. I’m sure you get the idea now. You can validate this information by using any VPN client on your phone. Link scans: This is all traffic from your phone: background app refreshes, apps can send request to hundreds of separate links. That’s why you see so many link scans. Network usage: again, because all apps route their data into this app, your data usage will be pointed to this app aswell. If you used 5GB on Facebook, it would show as 5GB under this app.

1 year ago, Steve/Crew

Security

I feel confident in web browsing situations when I have my office 365 working correctly and able to use defender on my phone, it’s a more comfortable when I have my office 365 working correctly and able to use defender on my phone, it’s easier for me to search. I still keep my guard up against the tricks the hackers use but it is safer with Defender!

2 months ago, ErwinG

Comes with my MS 365

Appreciate that Microsoft gave their 365 costumers access to this VPN. It’s decent but very, very slow specially during peak times. It’s also a data hog. When testing for data consumption, it shows data consumption almost equal to a movie app I was using for the test; therefore, your data consumption will doubles. It also connects me to their Ontario server, which causes problems with some streaming apps that only works in the US. Causes more problems than necessary. Meanwhile, AT&T’s Active Armor doesn’t affect Internet performance negatively. I’m sticking with Active Armor and leaving MS Defender installed as backup. Also wanted to echo what others have noticed regarding battery high battery usage. It does consume more battery than Active Armor.

3 months ago, shiningsee

An Impressive Privacy and Security Suite

I’m very impressed with Microsoft Defender’s broad spectrum of privacy and security tools. The integrated VPN feature is especially appreciated in that it replaces the need to pay for a standalone VPN solution. How Defender compares to to other VPNs is beyond the scope of this review. One star removed because, although Defender VPN will automatically activate if it was turned off when connecting to a public WiFi, there’s no setting to automatically turn it off when on a trusted network like work or home. And it WILL interfere if On when you try using some apps such as banking apps at home or work.

2 months ago, NicknameMick

Acts Like a Virus

I installed this app and it immediately told me it had detected a security risk and forced me to change my password. The phone was essentially locked until I changed my password. I don’t want to change my password and I don’t believe there was an immediate security risk when I turned it on. Then I’m traveling to the airport today and it would not permit me to access travel apps. So I turned off VPN in the app but still same result. Restarted my phone still wouldn’t work. This is ridiculous. It makes my phone act like it has a virus. I just deleted the app and all is well. Another huge failure from Microsoft.

3 months ago, AnonymouseSqueaks

Mixed Review

Works great on iPadOS 17.5.1 with no issues. Does not work well on iPhone IOS 17.5.1. Unable to browse some of the commonly used web sites. Safari returns an error that server cannot be connected. If I wait a few hours the web sites work again. When I disable the VPN the web sites immediately work again. This has happened dozens of times both on my home network and on the carrier network even after deleting and reinstalling the app twice. Disgusted with the frustration, I permanently deleted the app from my iPhone.

2 years ago, archimedesk

Vpn

Good overall app, for all your devices. The vpn option stopped working after I upgraded to ios 16 for some reason. Even though the iPhone shows the vpn icon, and it shows it’s connected in the settings but there’s no vpn server. I maybe missing something but not using for now…. vpn is working again. Updating to 4 star. For several days a lot of iPhones/MacBook users did not have vpn, even though their iPhone showed they did. Back to using the app

1 year ago, A. Uzi

Link Unsupported

Upon signing into app link is unsupported, troubleshooting methods were attempted from resetting and redownloading app to ensuring cookies were not blocked, however cookie poisoning and other https attacks were captured within the program, between web browser and app. Maybe this is what’s causing the link to be unsupported, not sure many uncertain factors are contributed towards this concern. Recently updated iOS security firmware that could be a cause as well other platforms were affected when attempting to sync account by logging into app with browser.

1 month ago, MJ975

Brought my IPhone on its knees

Was delighted to install the App on my IOS devices since I’ve had Defender on my new Windows 11 laptop and works great. However I’ve been disappointed with the performance on my iPhone. It has slowed my web browsing to a crawl. I’ve turned it off for now in hopes that you can update the software Thanks Lou

3 years ago, Bigger Fam!

You killed “Calendar” app

I’m not sure what you’re doing every time I pull up the Apple calendar app but you’ve destroyed it’s ability to render correctly. Must you recheck all the link in calendar every time I open it (I think this is what is happening). I live in the calendar app with managing 5+ different calendars between a busy work life, teenagers, service work and a marriage. Please figure this out for better functionality. If you’re going to sell companies on that they need to force employees to put this on personal devices then stop ruining their personal device experience.

3 years ago, Forbes Higman

Huge battery drain for no perceptible value

This app used 45% of the battery on my iPhone 13 pro max today. This isn’t uncommon. On a good day it uses 20% of the battery. It also breaks basic functionality in some apps. For example the My Spectrum app won’t even finish loading on my phone when Defender is installed and running. On the dashboard in this app all it ever says is that it’s “scanned” 5K+ links in the last 24 hours? It doesn’t matter if I’ve been using my phone heavily, or barely at all. What “links” does this thing think it’s scanning? Where does it find them? What is it “scanning” them for? I navigated to a handful of known phishing sites just to see what this app would do. It didn’t seem to do anything as far as I could tell. What value does this provide me, or my company? How is it worth nearly half my battery, and breaking basic functionality in 4 other apps I use?

2 years ago, Adw2896

Interrupts internet connectivity

It’s been almost a year since I’ve been forced to install this app (if I want to continue to access company apps), and somehow, it’s worse than it originally was. More than several times a day, I have to restart the loop back vpn to do a simple internet search or load any data. At this point, I can’t justify ruining the usability of my personal device to access company systems. It’s very disappointing, because accessing those systems from my phone allows my team and I to be more productive, and this app is interfering with that.

2 years ago, Leo1476

Stopped working on personal account

April 11, 2022: The app does not connect anymore using my personal Outlook account. When I select my Outlook account, it says “cannot find your account or your license has expired”. I didn’t realize I need any license or subscription needs to be associated to the Outlook account. Works fine with the work account.

3 years ago, camphorliage

Would give 0 star if I can

The corporate required us to install this App post Oct,25th otherwise we wouldn’t be able to get access to the corporate resource. 7 days since I’ve installed this App, it has consumed 7GB of my cellular data, 13% of battery in the background while the only two other Apps that have been using more battery are IMs that I’ve been frequently using throughout the week. Uninstalling it now. I’d rather not checkout any resources from my phone and only use corporate PC instead. Thanks Microsoft! Kudos to enforcing our work life balance!

2 years ago, H0ngh0ng

Drains battery in no time

I had 97% batter before I went to sleep. This is a new battery with 100% battery health. I woke up with 2% battery left. The setting shows no other app using battery at background only MS defender. This is terrible to see battery health report shows the drain by each hour with this app. Makes things slower and cause the phone to lose charge very quickly. Only reason I use is because we are forced to use it to get access to work resources. I wish someone can consider improving as this is forced upon us

2 months ago, Flirtie Bertie

Security

I’m so glad I got this security app. It has stopped so many people from getting my information and I get a notification every time something is a threat. I would highly recommend this app to anyone who is trying to keep unwanted persons from getting their information.

2 months ago, master c63

My review

What can I say? It does the job like it says it can. I also have Defender on my laptop. I like the added VPN feature, it works great. You can tell the difference after shopping around, you don’t get bombarded with ads of the stuff you just wanted a price for.

1 year ago, Jiffy1232

Excellent And Trustworthy Time and Time again!

Just know you all are doing your best to protect us all, including yourselves and your Distinction of Doing what is always right is in and of itself is very comforting knowing the Tech I use, is Microsoft absolutely secure and brilliant tech, hands down.

3 years ago, wowowowowowwowoowow

very challenging to switch phones

Between this app, Authenticator, and the comp portal app, they all work terribly together and have wasted hours of my time trying to set up a new phone this week. I keep deleting and starting over and whether it’s comp portal saying I don’t have this app (defender) when I already do, or trying to get me to use the auth app when it’s not working yet, the whole thing has been a nightmare. at this point I’m probably just not going to access work things on my phone, period.

2 months ago, MingCat

MS Defender used all my cell data then stopped working

The day after I installed MS Defender I got a text from my cellular carrier saying I was out of data. I don’t use cellular data…my plan only gives me 2 gigs between my husband and I. I checked which apps used the data and MS Defender used 1.87 gigs in the one day it was installed! I then went to the app to see if I could figure out why it used so much cellular data (I was inside most of the day working) and got an error that MS Defender stopped working. So, I just uninstalled it.

9 months ago, LoneGnome77

Disappointed

I had to uninstall the app because it kept turning on the VPN and it was breaking all of my apps. I really liked the idea of the app and got a lot of value from the dark net monitoring, etc. but ultimately had to remove it since it was breaking other functionality and I had no way to stop it other than uninstalling. I might try again later but really disappointed in this from Microsoft.

2 years ago, This Super Angry iMovie User

Absolutely Terrible!!!

This App Drained My Battery Life, Got 10 Annoying “Harmful Site” Screens When Opening A 100% Safe Link, Destroyed Other Apps, & Breaking My Wi-Fi Network! This App Is Getting More Worse Than I Think It Was, This Broke 3 Applications Like Apple Maps, Minecraft, & Apple Contacts. Also, I’m Using A 7th Gen iPad & It Displayed The Wrong Device. It’s Named “This iPhone”, But I’m Using My iPad Right Now, You Need To Fix This Kind Of Unfixed Causes That I’ve Experiencing. This App Is Terrible & I Need To Uninstall This App Before My Device Is Getting Unstable Now.

2 years ago, rat8484

Microsoft defender is not working anymore

Microsoft defender was working fine after this last update it stopped working it will not let me sign in with my current subscription. I even uninstalled it and reinstalled and it made no difference.

3 years ago, TexasPropWash

No issues except the same stuff you have with any endpoint protection product

My battery usage for this app is 15% normally. Some website loading issues. Must disable to use OpenVPN. Overall, it’s the normal level of EPP annoyance I would expect.

1 year ago, 3719826291

Doesn't explain what it does.

I use a variety of tool, including a VPN, an adblicker, and a DNS security tool, so I want to understand how MS Defender might work or not work with the rest. But all it says is that it protects you from web sites trying to steal your information. That is far too vague to make sense of. I get that many uses don't understand these things but there need to be a "more information" feature that actually explains what I'm turning on when I say enable web protection.

6 months ago, Maui_Evan

Like concept… recent execution is poor

The idea of being protected by a VPN that scans incoming traffic to weed out harmful information is great. It worked well on my iPhone 14 Pro until that last update. It slowed my browsing experience to a crawl!!! I don’t know why but uninstalling it helped immensely. I hope that Microsoft can fix this issue so I can update my rating and review!

3 years ago, BobLu1

Poor Quality App

If there is an option to give negative ratings, I would have given it to this app. Day 1 I install this and is the biggest mistake I did that day. This application should not break other applications like messages, because now I don’t get new message notifications after installing this. I’m now waiting for a new iPhone SE release to decamp all my Microsoft applications there as a dedicated work phone so that it can no longer ruin my main phone

2 years ago, Lin uen

You are so powerful

Our Microsoft Defender is so powerful and you working is very good . I liked very much. You can protect my devices. But your web protection won’t show up , I hope that you will work for my devices web protection. Thank you.

3 years ago, Infinityball

Huge battery and data drain.

First the good news is that it runs “out of sight, out of mind”, which I guess is good. The bad news is that when I look at my device stats this app uses about 50-75% of my battery every day and used about 15GB of data for the month. I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure what it’s supposed to do but I know it’s physically costing me money since I now have to charge my phone 2x per day.

2 years ago, Alodar101

Ios 16.3 defender issue

After the update to 16.3, defender was enable to engage. As a result, wifi was not available. Defender was unable to engage. It kept flashing on /off. To bypass this, I had to remove it. Once removed wifi was able to engage. I have reset my device and will try defender again. This has worked as expected in previous versions of ios

2 years ago, IMP667

Easy to use

App is super easy to install and has minimal interface. It would be cool enforce or stop the option from turning it off. I guess that can be done with Intune?

3 years ago, Rachel shao

Give us a work phone please

I kept putting it off installing it until I needed to dial in for an important meeting and i got kicked out saying I havent installed this app. Really? After installing it told me it scanned 2k links, what links, I only used outlook and teams to work for the past few hours. Just get employee a work phone. I would rather carry two phones around other than have all these company apps stored on my phone to monitor everything.

3 years ago, pseudopsyche

Breaks Calendar and drains battery

I’ve used my work calendar through the built-in Calendar app for years, but now it never stays in sync essentially rendering it unusable. Battery drain is also a real problem when this is running. To be clear, I don’t mean the percentages that are attributed to it in Settings, I mean that my phone literally dies earlier in the day on days that I have this enabled. This is the case on days with similar usage and screen on time.

4 months ago, Sum1tookmyniknaym

Absolutely useless app.

Makes your apps run extremely slow. Murders your bandwidth. Cut mine by over 90%. Didn’t matter if 5G or a known safe WiFi. This app makes my phone and tablet completely unusable. The identity protection tells you your information has been leaked but won’t give you any way to fix it, doesn’t even tell you where it was leaked. What good is this? This is what Bill Gates would be if they turned him into an app. Worthless.

6 months ago, Verityz

No Face ID login?!

Not a bad app, I like the VPN option. But, whenever I open the app it gives immediate access to the dashboard. This should be locked down behind the device passcode or Face ID. Right now, anyone could open the app and see my credit information. Not good.

3 months ago, Warwlf

What are you supposed to do with their data breach info?

It’s really not clear how to handle a data breach they’ve found. If you use the VPN be warned you could look suspicious when banking and buying at the other end of the connection and get flagged/ kind of opposite what having Dender is supposed to do. For you it supposed to warn you that someone is suspicious but not make you suspicious.

9 months ago, AlejoEsq

HORRIBLE APP USER INTERFACE!

It’s ridiculous how after all these years Microsoft can’t come up with an easy way for users to use their software/tools. This app does not guide in any way or explains to users how to “fix” or resolve alerts on a step by step basis. Or whether the fix is via the phone settings or app settings. It is basically a stressful app that is continuously screaming with alerts that require login via the website for resolution.

1 year ago, aramyth

VPN seems to be all it does and it's just ok

VPN works fine. Until you need to turn it off for a second to access something, in my case the Verizon app doesn't work over this VPN, so even if you temporarily disable this VPN it breaks WiFi until you reinstall the app. Also if you temporarily lose service it fails to reconnect correctly until you uninstall the app.

3 years ago, Jimmie Lightner

Completely breaks connectivity

Oh look, all my apps that need data stopped working again! And now they work… I’ve submitted multiple reports about this behavior, but nothing is done. If you’re in the position, it’s best to avoid having this on your primary device. Buy a junk phone for work stuff or prepare to battle IT just to be able to use your own device normally. 😤

6 months ago, seaaron

Makes my Apple devices unusable

My husband works for Microsoft and I want to use their software, but this made my devices utterly unusable. Any web search or app that I use takes forever to load and often requires me to refresh. It’s basically taking the abstinence is the best approach to anything that requires internet. I want to be safe online but not at the expense of basic functionality.

3 years ago, MC Aquaduct

Battery Drain and Excessive Background Activity

MSFT recently required this app to be running on any phone accessing corporate resources such as email/calendar, etc. Uninstalled after 1 day because it used 15% of my battery. The app claims it was scanned 8k links in the background. Why? I certainly wasn’t accessing those links. Why is the app scanning links not in use on the phone? What is the actual background activity?

7 months ago, Grace 8

Not working after paying for Microsoft 365 family subscription

Paid for family subscription which includes this defender services. However, it just keeps asking me to pay even though I already signed into my MS account. Spent hours with tech support on the phone around the world, no one was able to fix it!!!! Someone, someone please the top please step in to assist please! PLEASE!!!!

3 years ago, Sam from MSFT

Breaks access to a number of legitimate websites

I’ve lost track of the number of legitimate websites that get blocked but this app. 50% of public WiFi login screens are getting blocked. I can’t use wifi at my gym or favorite cafe without deleting this app. Absolutely incompetent engineering by Microsoft. A downgrade in every way. Legitimately considering leaving the company over this unless someone competent fixes the app, or we get corporate phones.

1 week ago, Dph2009

Needs basic improvements

This app seems to mostly do what it was intended to do but it needs fine tuning. For example, when running on an iPad or iPhone, it prevents the Apple Podcasts app from ever running any podcasts. The workaround is to turn off the vpn, start the desired podcast, and then restart the vpn. This is clunky and shouldn’t be a problem with the vpn in the first place.

2 years ago, Kurt Youngmann

Fixed My Spam Mail Problem

I was getting a lot of spam email until I installed this on my iPhone. It all went away thanks to this app.

3 months ago, ElRichieC

Slow VPN connection

I’ve noticed a significant slowdown in my internet connection when using the Windows Defender VPNfeature. Apps struggle to load, if at all, leading to a frustrating user experience. However, once I turn off the VPN and uninstall it, my connection speed improves dramatically, and everything runs smoothly again.

3 years ago, aditdalvi

Can’t connect to WiFi on flights

When I’m on airplane mode and I connect to the plane’s wifi, the gogo or United web portal don’t load because of the VPN. When I disable/uninstall this app, everything works fine. Please fix this scenario. I will also echo the data and battery usage complaints. I was traveling internationally and this app used a ton of my roaming data, which is expensive!

2 years ago, IAM Technucal

Defender Killing my IPhone Battery

This APP uses a unacceptable amount of battery because it is constantly running in the back ground. APP is at #1 under battery usage list on my IOS device using around 27% of my total battery between charges. Currently, uninstalling this App. and reinstalling to check my work email then uninstalling it when done…..every time!

2 years ago, Tix's Device

Useless

Literally the last thing I need on my phone. The defender team knows this app is useless - the only thing this does is a loopback VPN that scans phishing URLs, which can be replaced by a Safari ad blocker and would not feel as intrusive as a VPN that must be turned on 24 hours. Ridiculous that company portal requires this to be turned on every once in a while, which is just a hassle.

3 years ago, NotExpectMuch

Battery drain

Experience over the last 4 days since I installed this app: read messages in a messaging app for 1 min, nothing else was running, battery went from 100% to 87%; searched recipes in Edge and battery dropped more than 30% in 5 mins; had to charge my phone 3 times during the daytime… Need to get a secondary phone to separate work and personal use now.

Description

Microsoft Defender is an online security app for your personal life[1]and work [2]. Use Microsoft Defender for individuals[1] at home and on the go to stay safer online. Defender is an easy-to-use app that helps keep you and your family one step ahead of threats. Microsoft Defender for individuals is available exclusively with a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscription. All-in-one security app Protect your personal identity, privacy, and devices against malicious threats with antivirus scanning[3], VPN[4], threat monitoring[5], multidevice alerts, and expert guidance. Manage your security in one place ▪ Check the security status of your family’s devices and identity[6]. ▪ Get threat alerts, notifications, and recommended steps across your devices. ▪ Receive security tips and take recommended actions to improve your online security. Safeguard your family’s personal information ▪ Threats to your identity and personal identifying information[5] are continuously scanned on the dark web. ▪ Get credit monitoring with timely alerts and monthly credit reports.[7] ▪ Call an identity theft restoration expert anytime day or night if you need help. ▪ Get identity insurance coverage, up to USD1 million, to help cover legal and expert fees associated with restoration. Insurance coverage includes up to USD100,000 to recover lost funds.[8] Browse securely on public Wi-Fi ▪ Safeguard your Wi-Fi connection with privacy protection[4]. ▪ Easily turn on a virtual private network (VPN) in the Defender app. ▪ Keep your location and IP address private with VPN so hackers can’t trace your online activity. Trusted device and data protection ▪ Anti-phishing protection for your and your family’s devices against new and existing threats [3]. ▪ Continuously scans for harmful links before you click on them to help protect you from malicious threats. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Microsoft Defender for Endpoint[2] is an industry-leading, cloud-powered endpoint security solution that helps to secure against ransomware, file-less malware, and other sophisticated attacks across platforms. 1. Microsoft 365 Family or Personal subscription required. Sign in with your Microsoft account. App is currently not available in certain Microsoft 365 Personal or Family regions. 2. If you are a member of a business or organization, login with your work or school email. Your school or business is required to have a valid license or subscription. 3. Does not replace existing malware protection on iOS and Windows devices. 4. Available on Android and iOS devices in the United Kingdom, United States and US territories. Some streaming services are excluded. After 50 GB per month, data transfer speeds may be limited. 5. Feature is available in the United States and US territories. 6. A one-time parent or legal guardian verification is required to receive dark web threat alert details for children. If the organizer’s family member is under 13, consent is not required to create and/or monitor a child’s identity. Consent is required to create and/or monitor identity of family members over 13 years of age. 7. Feature available in the United States and US territories. Credit score is a single bureau VantageScore 3.0 provided by Experian®. The monthly credit report is provided by Experian® using single bureau data. For users under the age of 18 or those without a credit history, credit score not included. Family organizers will not have the ability to onboard, view, and receive alerts related to family member credit monitoring. Your device's primary display language must be set to English. 8. The identity theft insurance is underwritten and administered by American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida, an Assurant company. Please refer to the actual policies for terms, conditions, and exclusions of coverage. Coverage may not be available in all jurisdictions. Review the Summary of Benefits: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/microsoft-365/summary-of-benefits-for-itm.