Solved Defender - Is this normal behaviour?

I run Eset Nod32 antivirus and I have the option to use Microsoft Defender turned off. However, I regularly get a pop-up notification above the clock to say Defender found no viruses or suspicious files. I also get regular "Security Intelligence Updates for Microsoft Defender Antivirus KBxxxxxxx" every few hours. (See attachments).

Is this normal behaviour for Microsoft Defender when not activated?

thecaretaker said:

Is this normal behaviour for Microsoft Defender when not activated?

Click to expand...

Yes. Even when Defender is no longer the active AV protection, by default it will still perform limited periodic scans. A scan with Defender (or anything else for that matter, eg Malwarebytes) is safe to perform as it does not clash with the active AV protection. And of course if Defender is to make periodic scans it will also need to keep its AV definitions up to date.

More about this here:

Thanks Bree. I didn't know Defender still performed periodic scans even if that switch was turned off. You live and learn