News Microsoft Defender flags text file containing ‘This content is no longer available.’ as a severe threat

[Admin]

Microsoft Defender marks text files containing 'This content is no longer available.' as a Trojan horse and severe threat.

Microsoft Defender flags text file containing ‘This content is no longer available.’ as a severe threat : Read more

 

[Colif]

its hardly the first time an AV has had a false positive.
Not sure why you would expect Defender to be perfect... its not even close.

I wonder how good it is detecting viruses on ARM. Glad I don't need to find out.

 

[Giroro]

I think one of my biggest problems with Windows Defender, is the complete lack of user control.
It doesn't quarantine files, ask you what to do, or ask what kinds of files are ok to delete. It just deletes whatever it wants, whenever it wants. It usually doesn't even notify you.
If you try to turn it off, it will just turn itself back on again - which suggests Microsoft is making money when it runs. Maybe it's telling Microsoft about every file you have on your computer, so they can sell the data.

Either way, If you had a key generator for some 30 year old piece of abandoned software archived on your computer, it's definitely been deleted by now. It won't be there when you need it

 

[Bruce Benson]

Defender removed without warning epg123 which updates windows 8.1 media center tv schedules (yes, still use it). It took the auther of the program months to get Microsoft not to flag it as malware. This looked like Microsoft trying to discourage use of the program by 'mistakenly' flagging it as malware (was not a false positive).

I've tried to turn off Defender in a windows 10 VM I run a few windows only apps on my Linux Mint PC. It shows it is off but it also shows significant process usage especially on boot up.

I have little faith in Defender and have generally (attempted to) turned it off on my Windows PCs, but I've grave doubts that it's off and is probably harvesting as much private data as possible.

 

[Colif]

I just replaced it with BitDefender as I still don't trust it or a lot of the sites I may have to visit to find answers for people here.
Defender turns off if you replace it, it just resists the action if it doesn't find a replacement there.

 

[USAFRet]

I just replaced it with BitDefender as I still don't trust it or a lot of the sites I may have to visit to find answers for people here.

I had to ditch BitDefender because it would not let me log into my router.
"expired cert".

 

[Colif]

I had to ditch BitDefender because it would not let me log into my router.
"expired cert".

that is a reasonable reason.

 

[brewmanz]

The only text file that I know would be flagged is
X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*