The best way to keep it safe is let it auto install patches, and don't download or run anything dodgy. Same as it had always been. I leave windows defender on

The best way to keep it safe is let it auto install patches, and don't download or run anything dodgy. Same as it had always been. I leave windows defender on 100% of the time on my personal laptop. It's totally benign in my experience and doesn't have any obvious performance impact that I can see. I would never tell anyone to turn off windows defender. I have told people to uninstall ageing AVG/avast/Norton et Al installs that have not had definition updates in months/years and really do seem to impact day to day use of the computer. My view is leave the virus checker that was built by the people who made windows and is built directly into windows there to do the job that the people who built the damn thing designed it to do :)