One of the main security tools for Windows from Microsoft’s own company, Defender, has been struggling for some years now. to gain a leading position in the field of security tools and ratings made by their users. And the truth is that they have certain reasons to stick out their chests, because, as we told you before, we are talking about a solution that regularly receives very positive recognition from independent entities such as AV-Test.

In an effort to protect users last June, the company announced that it is expanding the availability of Microsoft Defender to all users of Office 365 Personal and Family plans, now Microsoft 365. Recall that until then, the security of this solution was available only to companies and other business customers, not to individuals. so it represented a very important leap in its global reach.

Despite the fact that many months have passed since then, the rate of adoption of Microsoft Defender among private users was not very high. Reasons? Perhaps the lack of greater communication on the part of those in Redmond, ignorance of the tool and its functions on the part of users, prioritization of other security tools, in some cases perhaps even a certain mistrust… in short, the accumulation of “possible”, which caused many Microsoft 365 users, among which, I confess, did not make the leap.

Redmond must have thought of great evils, great resources, so if the user doesn’t switch to their security software, the security software will reach out to the user. So much so that, as the company itself stated on its support page, Microsoft Defender is automatically installed on Microsoft 365 Personal and Family users’ systems (It is not, of course, included in the Microsoft 365 Basic plan, introduced last January, which does not include installable versions of Office applications).

All users who have installed Microsoft 365 applications in recent days, and especially those who do so from now on, will see that the installer now includes a security application. What about those who already have the apps installed? Of course they thought of them too it will get Microsoft Defender in the next update from applications you already have installed on your system.

At this point it is important to note that Windows users already have “Windows Security” to ensure individual protection of their systems. Microsoft Defender offers us a kind of hub in which we can monitor the security of multiple devices (Windows, macOS, Android and iOS), something especially practical if we are administrators of a family plan and want to ensure the security of all the devices of family group members.