How good is Windows Defender?

I waited til Windows Defender came out of beta (and MS sure took a long time to work out the bugs before releasing it) before I installed it. It has given me no problems ever since. No false positives. It is the only anti-spyware I keep resident (running all the time in the background). I found it easy to install and configure, with a user-friendly interface. And I haven't seen many posts in various forums complaining of problems with it.

 

A good review of Defender (albeit the beta version) is here:
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/windefender_beta2.asp

 

I concur with the above reviewer's conclusion:
"Windows Defender Beta 2 combines the best-of-breed spyware detection and removal functionality from the old Giant Antispyware product and turns it into a stellar application that all Windows users should immediately download and install. Lightweight, effective, and unobtrusive, Windows Defender is anti-spyware done right, and I still consider this to be the best anti-spyware solution on the market. Highly recommended."

 

As far as Lavasoft's Ad-AwareSE personal goes, it also comes well-recommended. Unless you purchase the paid version, it provides no real-time protection, but is still a good on-demand scanner.

Windows Defender seems to work very well.  Important for me, it is compatible with McAfee.  I also run SpySweeper , but only to block cookies  and some ads real time.  Seeps by Windows Defender, SpySweeper amd Spyware Doctor are always negative.  Spyware Doctor used to be a good program, but I find it now slows my computer, prevents many pages from loading, and prolongs bootup unacceptably.  I only scan with it occasionally.  The tech support for it is very polite but useless. Remember Pearl Harbor!