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We have a meeting coming up at work this week to discuss our ESET license coming to an end and whether to stay with it or move to MS Defender as our antivirus solution (as it comes with an O365 license apparently).

I have put a lot of work into our ESET setup to work across remote clients, multiple remote sites and using various http caching proxies to get it to a point where I think it is a stable and reliable product. It installs easily using dynamic templates and is almost zero touch which is lovely. We also have never had a serious infection since having ESET which I think, personally, speaks world’s for its reputation.

Obviously I am biased based on what I have said, but I’m not the one that needs convincing. If MS Defender is a comparable and potentially a better product then I would like to hear your opinions on it compared to ESET (currently licensed for Endpoint Antivirus and File Security). So some pros and cons would be nice to hear about. I have no idea on how you set up MS Defender either, furthermore I don’t know how easy it is to strip apart ESET from all clients and servers, but I’m guessing it’s stuck on their pretty well…

Your views on the two products are very much appreciated.

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I had to actually decide between the 2 as well and well, this article I came across couldn’t have compared the 2 any better. I decided with ESET and if you already have everything set on ESET, I don’t see any reason to change. It has a built in file encryption and password manager as well. I am assuming they want to change because of the cost? To me, I don’t see the trade off in cost. I tend to get Leary on things that are free. In addition, it secures not only Windows, but also MacOS and Android (I’m sure you already knew that, but still.) It’s better to have 1 product solution rather than installing a different software for Android and MacOS Devices. Continuity is very important to me and most businesses.

Windows Defender Vs ESET | The Ultimate Battle [2023] .

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Thanks, that is really helpful. And yes, we have an abundance of Linux and Mac OS machines as well so not sure if Defender supports these either… I think it is purely because our licensing is due for renewal and we have not long taken on loads of E3 licenses for O365 so this is why it came up. To be honest, if our vendor could do us a good deal with ESET I would stick with it as it is very configurable and has very low impact on performance with some of our older i3 Intel machines.

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It does support it. But do you really think Microsoft would play nice on MacOS? lol I personally don’t.

MacOS: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint on Mac | Microsoft Learn

Linux: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint on Linux | Microsoft Learn

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That article is comparing ESET against ms defender av NOT the Defender endpoint/Defender 365 product. Also it actually finds that the MS AV product was better at malware detection. ESET won on management and features - which is exactly what defender endpoint adds to the standard defender AV.

I’m not saying one is better than the other - but just highlighting facts/information - I think it is a common misconception that defender endpoint is just the inbuilt av/firewall (it used to be called defender endpoint advanced threat protection). Also defender endpoint is not free.
Defender endpoint is actually an endpoint security manager (not an AV product)- it actually supports third party AV not just ms defender AV. it provides central control policy and analysis and post breach management etc. it also includes web filtering (which is something i learnt only recently).

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I guess more importantly is how good is MS support for configuring Defender 365? I know with ESET I can submit a ticket and get a fairly instance response and a good chat with logical responses as opposed to MS’s usual unhelpful support they provide…

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Thanks for the replies so far. I have a few more questions though about Defender 365 if the more experienced in the product don’t mind answering?

How are updates of endpoints handled, are these pushed from the main server, if so does the product support on site caching proxies to ease network load? That is one major thing that ESET does is that you can unburden your network between remote sites to keep response time low for better performance.

I notice that Defender 365 has a migration plan in place for places running a third party product already which is fine, but does anyone know how easy it is to uninstall ESET completely from clients? It’s only because I know the agent can be a bit of a pig sometimes to remove and the only way is via safe mode using their own uninstaller bat file. Now I don’t really want to be doing that on 2000+ machines so I’m hoping there’s an alternative to this or wiping the OS clean off it…