AV-Comparatives, an independent Austrian organization that tests and evaluates anti-virus software, has released a report for March 2022. It states that Microsoft Defender has one of the lowest efficiencies of offline scanning for malware – only 60.3%. This means that the antivirus protection built into the Windows operating system is heavily dependent on the cloud base and cannot deal with viruses very well without the Internet. Panda (40.6%) and Trend Micro (36.1%) had even worse results.

Microsoft Defender’s online performance is still very high (99.96%). AV-Comparatives performed two tests: detection and protection against malware. In the first case, the detection of such files was carried out both online and offline. In the second case – online only. The antivirus turned out to be ineffective in offline mode, because its protection may not work.

AV-Comparatives praised antiviruses such as Avast, AVG, Avira, Kaspersky, McAfee, and NortonLifeLock, along with Microsoft Defender Advanced+. Of course, an unpleasant moment does not make a Microsoft product unusable. However, keep in mind that the protection may not work without an Internet connection, so be careful when opening suspicious files.