Virus, malware, trojans, ad-ware, malicious software, others, these are all terms that many scanners use both unilaterally and interchangeably these days. Whether it is technically a virus, or malware, or a worm, or some other vulnerability is irrelevant. Windows defender is no longer simply a virus scanner. It scans and protects against malware and other vulnerabilities too much as most other scanners labeled as anti-malware or antivirus do as well for the past several years. You would be hard pressed to find a scanner that only handles one kind of malicious code anymore.
So to that extent, I've had several attempted infections over the last ten years. Too many to count. And I'm VERY fastidious about not allowing or opening email from unknown sources, from known sources that I've not heard from in a very long time, not going to the kind of sites that tend to have malicious code embedded or use questionable ads that might, do not source my software or games through torrented sources, in short, I do all that I can to reduce the possibility of anything malicious getting onto my system. And still, there have been a few occasions when my scanning software has been the savior from what would likely have been a bad day scenario.
Not having some kind of protection is pure stupidity, at best. I'm not saying YOU are stupid, but without some form of protection, you are surely putting yourself into that category where those kind of people live and breathe.