Microsoft brings formerly Windows-centric Defender antivirus to macOS
Reflecting its increasingly platform-agnostic stance, Microsoft on Thursday revealed plans to bring its Defender antivirus software to the Mac, if initially in limited form.
Specifically Macs will get Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection, renamed to Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), the company said. A limited preview is being offered to businesses that operate a mix of Mac and Windows PCs, consistent with ATP's business-only focus.
The software requires macOS Sierra or later. To update Defender, businesses will need Microsoft's custom AutoUpdate tool.
It's not yet known if the standard version of Defender will come to Macs. To date that app has simply been integrated into Windows 10, ensuring a base level of security against viruses and other threats.
Apple has had similar protections built into macOS/OS X since later versions of Snow Leopard, but these typically operate in the background.
Since taking over as CEO in 2014, Satya Nadella has steered Microsoft in an Apple-friendly direction. Many Microsoft products have made the transition to Macs, iPhones, and iPads, more recently even parts of its Xbox gaming platform that should eventually let people play those games without an Xbox at all.
Specifically Macs will get Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection, renamed to Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), the company said. A limited preview is being offered to businesses that operate a mix of Mac and Windows PCs, consistent with ATP's business-only focus.
The software requires macOS Sierra or later. To update Defender, businesses will need Microsoft's custom AutoUpdate tool.
It's not yet known if the standard version of Defender will come to Macs. To date that app has simply been integrated into Windows 10, ensuring a base level of security against viruses and other threats.
Apple has had similar protections built into macOS/OS X since later versions of Snow Leopard, but these typically operate in the background.
Since taking over as CEO in 2014, Satya Nadella has steered Microsoft in an Apple-friendly direction. Many Microsoft products have made the transition to Macs, iPhones, and iPads, more recently even parts of its Xbox gaming platform that should eventually let people play those games without an Xbox at all.
Comments
Minor correction.
Your conclusion is based on the common logical fallacy that the people who post on internet forums are representative of the overall population. However, the number of people posting on discussion forums is a microscopic percentage of the hundred million people that use a Mac. Even if there were 10,000 threads you could point to supporting your argument (there aren't even 100), that would still be less than .01% of all Mac users, and obviously it would be a subset of users who are experiencing problems.
And yes, that number is correct, https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/10/30/apple-passes-100m-active-mac-milestone-thanks-to-high-numbers-of-new-users
Edge and IE are even worse. In fact, Edge is so bad that even though it is the default in Windows 10, it has a 1% market share barely. Things became so bleak for Edge that Microsoft decided to abandon their own web engine and turn Edge into a Chrome clone.
Their customer service is virtually non-existent. I was recently locked out of my Office 365 account and it took days to get back in, after being bounced around half a dozen different departments. Their hardware, with the exception of Xbox and maybe Surface, is utter crap.
The only product they offer that is ok is Office, which is light years ahead of Pages, Numbers, etc. Let's hope it doesn't suffer the same fate as Microsoft's other products.
There are only two reasons why Microsoft still exists today. First, a massive installed base of workplace computers running legacy software prior to the rise of Mac in the early 2000s. And second, Office, another mainstay of the business world.
In any case, I’ve been using Windows since 2.1 so I know a little about “how to use”it. The last decent version of Windows was XP, and every version since then has been an unmitigated disaster.
I take a lot of notes which require me to copy and paste from various applications to OneNote, "copy and paste" work much better in Windows 10 than MacOS.
Not sure the anti virus part since I did not use any in MacOS and won't download random app from internet (as IT professional, I know security well enough)