Products · Product
Microsoft Defender
Raised as a usability problem by 23 people on Hacker News over 10 years (2016–2025), in 17 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Defender runs alongside other antivirus with no obvious off switchUnreviewed
20162026- Defender cannot be turned off or uninstalled, even with third-party antimalware installed2025-01-21
- Defender runs alongside other antivirus with no obvious way to turn it off2022-01-13
- Disabling Defender from Control Panel is only temporary and it turns back on by itself2018-01-29
Quarantined files are unrecoverable because the quarantine folder was removedUnreviewed
20162026- Normal users cannot choose quarantine over automatic deletion without group policy2023-10-02
- Settings and buttons seem useless; exclusions get ignored and files are repeatedly quarantined2021-07-22
- Quarantined files are basically unrecoverable because the quarantine directory was removed2021-06-01
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 25 complaints
- Defender cannot be turned off or uninstalled, even with third-party antimalware installed2025-01-21
- Windows Explorer hangs for seconds whenever an unknown file is touched2024-02-23
- Can't configure scanning of downloads without real-time protection; every setting attempt fails2023-10-02
- Normal users cannot choose quarantine over automatic deletion without group policy2023-10-02
- Exclusions don't work, forcing user to fully disable real-time protection2023-05-17
- Defender scans start at odd times and randomly lag games and other activity2023-04-11
- USB scanning is no longer on by default and is hard to find enabling2022-03-29
- Defender runs alongside other antivirus with no obvious way to turn it off2022-01-13
- Flags legitimate programs as Trojans, blocking the user's own software2021-10-09
- Scan hogs memory all day, forcing user to run scripts to shut it down2021-07-22
- Settings and buttons seem useless; exclusions get ignored and files are repeatedly quarantined2021-07-22
- Blocks installing or doing small tasks users need, which is frustrating2021-07-22
- Keeps nagging weekly to re-enable after user turned it off2021-07-22
- Quarantined files are basically unrecoverable because the quarantine directory was removed2021-06-01
- Can't tell whether folder exclusions work or which files are scanned2021-04-08
- The Run Anyways option is hidden, so users struggle to get past the warning2020-06-03
- Blocking dialog gives no clue the program can still be run2020-06-03
- Users must hunt through Properties to unblock files before running them2020-06-02
- Repeated warnings train users to click through without reading them2020-06-02
- Run Anyway button hidden behind More Info, so users must dig for it2020-06-02
- Developers must build UX guidance for users clicking through trust dialogs2020-06-02
- Hard to disable, and settings revert after updates re-enable it2019-08-15
- Disabling Defender from Control Panel is only temporary and it turns back on by itself2018-01-29
- Slows PCs badly, using heavy CPU and disk I/O so the machine becomes hard to use2017-01-26
- Typed characters appear about half a second late while Defender is running2016-11-11