Computer Help and Support

You need more than Defender only if you have high-security needs. 99% of users do not.

All anti-virus programs slow your computer in their own unique ways. Defender is designed by Microsoft to produce as little load as possible on Windows-based systems.

Typical anti-virus and security software install deeply into Windows. Removing them is not always so easy, but maybe quite necessary for the continued health of the computer. The last time I uninstalled McAfee from a computer, some Windows files were damaged or removed. I had to reinstall Windows.

Reinstalling Windows ensures that you will not have foreign software on your computer, such as the source of your popups.

Better than security software, and necessary in addition, is a good set of backups. If you clone your system drive on some semiregular basis, you are protected from more than just hackers, you have relief from one's own potential mistakes, as well as bad "updates" from Microsoft. If something happens to my system, I can just revert to a previous version of my system disk. (This only works if your drive is easily removed from the system.)