Microsoft Defender: Security Customer Service

I’ve seen a significant amount of reviews complaining about “High battery usage” and “5k links?? I only used one app!” iOS tracks “battery usage” based on network activity, and because this acts as a VPN, yes, it will show high battery usage, but in reality it’s not. Let’s say Facebook used 10% battery, and Instagram used 15% battery, after installing this app, you’d see iOS report that this app used 25% of your battery. I’m sure you get the idea now. You can validate this information by using any VPN client on your phone. Link scans: This is all traffic from your phone: background app refreshes, apps can send request to hundreds of separate links. That’s why you see so many link scans. Network usage: again, because all apps route their data into this app, your data usage will be pointed to this app aswell. If you used 5GB on Facebook, it would show as 5GB under this app.

Like many other others I appreciate the notifications that I get from Defender about credit alerts and blocked links. The only thing that’s been a bit annoying is that it shows that I’m connected to a VPN even though the VPN service was discontinued in February 2025. When I turn it off or try to delete the profile, the system tells me I’m not protective which I believe is not true. I keep my phone updated with app updates and it seems interesting that that the VPN feature has not been deleted from the app. Other than that highly recommend.

While almost all with Defender is good to excellent there is one area that drives me nuts. I have one alert that was created when I installed Defender (9/1/25) and that alert refuses to show any details. It simply says check back later. Several attempts to resolve through Microsoft have gone unanswered. Online blogs say nothing about such alerts with no action to resolve. Microsoft needs to allow such alerts to be marked as resolved or find a way to share the details of such persistent alerts with the user. To date, no reason for the alert has been discovered by me, and all attempts to resolve it from each of the monitored devices connected to my account have failed.

I feel confident in web browsing situations when I have my office 365 working correctly and able to use defender on my phone, it’s a more comfortable when I have my office 365 working correctly and able to use defender on my phone, it’s easier for me to search. I still keep my guard up against the tricks the hackers use but it is safer with Defender!

I’m very impressed with Microsoft Defender’s broad spectrum of privacy and security tools. The integrated VPN feature is especially appreciated in that it replaces the need to pay for a standalone VPN solution. How Defender compares to to other VPNs is beyond the scope of this review. One star removed because, although Defender VPN will automatically activate if it was turned off when connecting to a public WiFi, there’s no setting to automatically turn it off when on a trusted network like work or home. And it WILL interfere if On when you try using some apps such as banking apps at home or work.

Good overall app, for all your devices. The vpn option stopped working after I upgraded to ios 16 for some reason. Even though the iPhone shows the vpn icon, and it shows it’s connected in the settings but there’s no vpn server. I maybe missing something but not using for now…. vpn is working again. Updating to 4 star. For several days a lot of iPhones/MacBook users did not have vpn, even though their iPhone showed they did. Back to using the app

This app is by far one of the best I have used when it came to protecting my devices and sensitive information. It alerts me to suspicious activity and ensures all of my devices are covered and operating on the best available software update. Highly recommend using Microsoft Defender and having it monitor all of your sensitive and private information.

Was delighted to install the App on my IOS devices since I’ve had Defender on my new Windows 11 laptop and works great. However I’ve been disappointed with the performance on my iPhone. It has slowed my web browsing to a crawl. I’ve turned it off for now in hopes that you can update the software Thanks Lou

April 11, 2022: The app does not connect anymore using my personal Outlook account. When I select my Outlook account, it says “cannot find your account or your license has expired”. I didn’t realize I need any license or subscription needs to be associated to the Outlook account. Works fine with the work account.

I use Microsoft Defender Security on all of my OSX devices and a Windows 11 computer. When fist installed on Windows 11, the program found more than 150 Trojan horses in an old mail backup disk drive . More serious viruses Defender deleted viruses automatically. Works well on my iPad and iPhone. Has not slowed anything down. Great safety program.

I’m so glad I got this security app. It has stopped so many people from getting my information and I get a notification every time something is a threat. I would highly recommend this app to anyone who is trying to keep unwanted persons from getting their information.

Excellent Identity Protection & Security! Microsoft Defender has alerted me to numerous credit issues and helped me get back on track. It also has identified someone else who was using my name and personal information to open credit accounts! Thank you for an awesome product and service!!!

What can I say? It does the job like it says it can. I also have Defender on my laptop. I like the added VPN feature, it works great. You can tell the difference after shopping around, you don’t get bombarded with ads of the stuff you just wanted a price for.

Microsoft defender was working fine after this last update it stopped working it will not let me sign in with my current subscription. I even uninstalled it and reinstalled and it made no difference.

Just know you all are doing your best to protect us all, including yourselves and your Distinction of Doing what is always right is in and of itself is very comforting knowing the Tech I use, is Microsoft absolutely secure and brilliant tech, hands down.

My battery usage for this app is 15% normally. Some website loading issues. Must disable to use OpenVPN. Overall, it’s the normal level of EPP annoyance I would expect.

Once again I find myself choosing Microsoft Applications over others for there quality customer and tech support and the fact they just work the best and supporting a great company a plus.

This has been a good addition to the phone but lately I have been getting incessant prompts to update to iOS 18. That update is not yet fully ironed out and 17.7 has all the security updates. Let us turn off the notifications!

Our Microsoft Defender is so powerful and you working is very good . I liked very much. You can protect my devices. But your web protection won’t show up , I hope that you will work for my devices web protection. Thank you.

Not a bad app, I like the VPN option. But, whenever I open the app it gives immediate access to the dashboard. This should be locked down behind the device passcode or Face ID. Right now, anyone could open the app and see my credit information. Not good.

Elle nous permet d’être protégé

Tank you! Merci!

Good 5 star

Une erreur s'est produite Nous ne pouvons pas afficher les alertes et l'historique pour cet appareil, ni vous avertir des menaces sur d'autres appareils. Réessayer

Excellent!

This is a must have app for a PC and especially you ssmartphone. The app offers a decent VPN at no cost. Five stars MIcroSoft great Job with this application.

I like it a lot and it is good and easy to use

Svp juste être safe Thanh you

Thank’s

Awesome

Il a l’air à très bien fonctionné

Have used avast for years. This came with my new laptop and have been using it there and on my iOS device . I’m happy with how it’s working for my needs

Here’s a problem. When designers decide that there is only one path to using their app, and when you choose to “skip” something they think is necessary (because they get a kickback or have some other arrangement with a “partner”), they just nag you to death about it. I have a paid Experian subscription. It isn’t under my Microsoft ID. And it never will be. I don’t need Microsoft’s “free version.” But if you don’t set it up, the little red dot telling you that you have notifications will never go away. Which means you get in the habit of ignoring it. And then when a REAL notification comes along - well, you might miss it. When a user clicks “skip” that should be it. Maybe confirm “are you sure you want to skip?” And if they say yes then inform that “you can always come back and set up later.” And then nothing else. No constant “notification icon” that you can’t clear because you ALREADY HAVE THE SERVICE and don’t need Microsoft’s “free version.” I’ll give it six months. And if the notification is still there, I’ll delete the app. There are plenty of other options out there. But I went with Defender because I use it on my PCs and have for years. And I’ve NEVER been hacked or successfully attacked. It just works. But there’s no need to tie in “partner” processes and “require” them in order to “successfully complete setup.” Don’t be a Donald. Give the people what they need. Not what you want to give them. And for those of us with Experian accounts who don’t use their Microsoft ID for Experian, allow us to ACTUALLY skip the Experian/Defender integration. After all, defender is about defending my phone. Experian is about defending my credit. They really shouldn’t be mixed.

When I originally bought the service with Microsoft 365 package, the VPN was not available on my desktop or my iPhone. It would later become available after several software patches on my desktop, but it would take months before the VPN was available on my iPhone. I would later update the software on my iOS device and lose the option for the toggle switch within the MS Defender application on my iPhone again. All of the troubleshooting steps have failed and have not received any response from Microsoft’s support team. I’m paying for a service that does not work and that also includes the Skype application’s 60 minutes monthly subscription service. Albeit my Skype service is still being bombarded daily from bot accounts in Skype’s messenger service.

I've been using Microsoft Defender VPN for a while now, and my experience has been a bit of a mixed bag. There are some definite highlights, but also a few drawbacks that can't be ignored. **The Good:** The VPN service does have its moments. When it works well, it provides a solid and secure connection, which is crucial for maintaining privacy online. The interface is user-friendly and integrates smoothly with other Microsoft Defender services. **The Bad:** Unfortunately, the high battery usage is a significant downside. My device's battery drains quickly when the VPN is active, which is inconvenient, especially when I'm on the go. Additionally, the dark web monitoring feature, while a nice touch, falls short. It doesn't offer a lot of options for dealing with compromised information, leaving me feeling a bit unprotected in that aspect. Overall, Microsoft Defender VPN is decent but has room for improvement, particularly in terms of battery efficiency and dark web monitoring capabilities.

It took awhile to Look up everything, then followed by entering the information which too about an hour and the App lost almost 3/4 of the information which was quite disappointing. I had to go back and re-enter the information. The VPN blocks me from logging into websites like AETNA dental. I closed it in the App and it keeps reopening and blocking me from logging in to my Insurance provider. I had to delete the App in order to get into my Insurance Provider Aetna. Also the VPN blocks smart locks on August as well and I got locked out of my home!

I installed this app and it immediately told me it had detected a security risk and forced me to change my password. The phone was essentially locked until I changed my password. I don’t want to change my password and I don’t believe there was an immediate security risk when I turned it on. Then I’m traveling to the airport today and it would not permit me to access travel apps. So I turned off VPN in the app but still same result. Restarted my phone still wouldn’t work. This is ridiculous. It makes my phone act like it has a virus. I just deleted the app and all is well. Another huge failure from Microsoft.

Works great on iPadOS 17.5.1 with no issues. Does not work well on iPhone IOS 17.5.1. Unable to browse some of the commonly used web sites. Safari returns an error that server cannot be connected. If I wait a few hours the web sites work again. When I disable the VPN the web sites immediately work again. This has happened dozens of times both on my home network and on the carrier network even after deleting and reinstalling the app twice. Disgusted with the frustration, I permanently deleted the app from my iPhone.

I never make replies but guys don’t get this. In order to sign in I had to sign in to Microsoft I had to download this stupid app. For one this app creates security risk. DONT DOWNLOAD. Before I couldn’t get rid of my account because it was difficult sign in it wouldn’t let me continue… The only thing it would let me continue with was a stupid free trial then a payment for 10 dollars. It consumes your battery steals your cellular data. There is no telling what information this app took from me. I was wondering why it had only 13k reviews….because ppl know what catastrophe this stupid “defender” app is. I would give them no stars if it would let me. Waste of time.

Upon signing into app link is unsupported, troubleshooting methods were attempted from resetting and redownloading app to ensuring cookies were not blocked, however cookie poisoning and other https attacks were captured within the program, between web browser and app. Maybe this is what’s causing the link to be unsupported, not sure many uncertain factors are contributed towards this concern. Recently updated iOS security firmware that could be a cause as well other platforms were affected when attempting to sync account by logging into app with browser.

I’m not sure what you’re doing every time I pull up the Apple calendar app but you’ve destroyed it’s ability to render correctly. Must you recheck all the link in calendar every time I open it (I think this is what is happening). I live in the calendar app with managing 5+ different calendars between a busy work life, teenagers, service work and a marriage. Please figure this out for better functionality. If you’re going to sell companies on that they need to force employees to put this on personal devices then stop ruining their personal device experience.

This app used 45% of the battery on my iPhone 13 pro max today. This isn’t uncommon. On a good day it uses 20% of the battery. It also breaks basic functionality in some apps. For example the My Spectrum app won’t even finish loading on my phone when Defender is installed and running. On the dashboard in this app all it ever says is that it’s “scanned” 5K+ links in the last 24 hours? It doesn’t matter if I’ve been using my phone heavily, or barely at all. What “links” does this thing think it’s scanning? Where does it find them? What is it “scanning” them for? I navigated to a handful of known phishing sites just to see what this app would do. It didn’t seem to do anything as far as I could tell. What value does this provide me, or my company? How is it worth nearly half my battery, and breaking basic functionality in 4 other apps I use?

It’s been almost a year since I’ve been forced to install this app (if I want to continue to access company apps), and somehow, it’s worse than it originally was. More than several times a day, I have to restart the loop back vpn to do a simple internet search or load any data. At this point, I can’t justify ruining the usability of my personal device to access company systems. It’s very disappointing, because accessing those systems from my phone allows my team and I to be more productive, and this app is interfering with that.

I used Microsoft Defender for quite a while. My iPhone would act up a lot in odd ways. I couldn’t download some things because of the VPN or I couldn’t go into one of my apps because of the VPN. Sometimes I couldn’t get into my Microsoft mail because of the VPN. It was strange. It really messed up my Apple Laptop. For some reason it wiped out my email account, and when I went to add it back on to my laptop it wouldn’t take my password! I have no clue how to fix that. Yes, I even tried to change my password, and that didn’t work either.

The corporate required us to install this App post Oct,25th otherwise we wouldn’t be able to get access to the corporate resource. 7 days since I’ve installed this App, it has consumed 7GB of my cellular data, 13% of battery in the background while the only two other Apps that have been using more battery are IMs that I’ve been frequently using throughout the week. Uninstalling it now. I’d rather not checkout any resources from my phone and only use corporate PC instead. Thanks Microsoft! Kudos to enforcing our work life balance!

I had 97% batter before I went to sleep. This is a new battery with 100% battery health. I woke up with 2% battery left. The setting shows no other app using battery at background only MS defender. This is terrible to see battery health report shows the drain by each hour with this app. Makes things slower and cause the phone to lose charge very quickly. Only reason I use is because we are forced to use it to get access to work resources. I wish someone can consider improving as this is forced upon us

The day after I installed MS Defender I got a text from my cellular carrier saying I was out of data. I don’t use cellular data…my plan only gives me 2 gigs between my husband and I. I checked which apps used the data and MS Defender used 1.87 gigs in the one day it was installed! I then went to the app to see if I could figure out why it used so much cellular data (I was inside most of the day working) and got an error that MS Defender stopped working. So, I just uninstalled it.

Between this app, Authenticator, and the comp portal app, they all work terribly together and have wasted hours of my time trying to set up a new phone this week. I keep deleting and starting over and whether it’s comp portal saying I don’t have this app (defender) when I already do, or trying to get me to use the auth app when it’s not working yet, the whole thing has been a nightmare. at this point I’m probably just not going to access work things on my phone, period.

It’s a powerful suite of protections. Love that. I want to choose when I’m using the VPN, and the VPN will re-enable itself when I’ve turned it off. Do not love that. The VPN slows down the connection and uses more battery. There are times when that compromise makes sense, and other times when it doesn’t. This app makes it harder to make that choice.

I had to uninstall the app because it kept turning on the VPN and it was breaking all of my apps. I really liked the idea of the app and got a lot of value from the dark net monitoring, etc. but ultimately had to remove it since it was breaking other functionality and I had no way to stop it other than uninstalling. I might try again later but really disappointed in this from Microsoft.

This App Drained My Battery Life, Got 10 Annoying “Harmful Site” Screens When Opening A 100% Safe Link, Destroyed Other Apps, & Breaking My Wi-Fi Network! This App Is Getting More Worse Than I Think It Was, This Broke 3 Applications Like Apple Maps, Minecraft, & Apple Contacts. Also, I’m Using A 7th Gen iPad & It Displayed The Wrong Device. It’s Named “This iPhone”, But I’m Using My iPad Right Now, You Need To Fix This Kind Of Unfixed Causes That I’ve Experiencing. This App Is Terrible & I Need To Uninstall This App Before My Device Is Getting Unstable Now.

App asks questions when you open it. It takes over your phone... blocking you from closing the app or opening any other app will not allow you to use your phone no matter what you do unless you capitulate to the apps demand that you answer it's questions or it will not let you use your phone at all you will obey and bow to their demands to answer their questions and they brick your phone until you obey the app and answer it's question

I use a variety of tool, including a VPN, an adblicker, and a DNS security tool, so I want to understand how MS Defender might work or not work with the rest. But all it says is that it protects you from web sites trying to steal your information. That is far too vague to make sense of. I get that many uses don't understand these things but there need to be a "more information" feature that actually explains what I'm turning on when I say enable web protection.

If there is an option to give negative ratings, I would have given it to this app. Day 1 I install this and is the biggest mistake I did that day. This application should not break other applications like messages, because now I don’t get new message notifications after installing this. I’m now waiting for a new iPhone SE release to decamp all my Microsoft applications there as a dedicated work phone so that it can no longer ruin my main phone

The idea of being protected by a VPN that scans incoming traffic to weed out harmful information is great. It worked well on my iPhone 14 Pro until that last update. It slowed my browsing experience to a crawl!!! I don’t know why but uninstalling it helped immensely. I hope that Microsoft can fix this issue so I can update my rating and review!

First the good news is that it runs “out of sight, out of mind”, which I guess is good. The bad news is that when I look at my device stats this app uses about 50-75% of my battery every day and used about 15GB of data for the month. I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure what it’s supposed to do but I know it’s physically costing me money since I now have to charge my phone 2x per day.

I kept putting it off installing it until I needed to dial in for an important meeting and i got kicked out saying I havent installed this app. Really? After installing it told me it scanned 2k links, what links, I only used outlook and teams to work for the past few hours. Just get employee a work phone. I would rather carry two phones around other than have all these company apps stored on my phone to monitor everything.

After the update to 16.3, defender was enable to engage. As a result, wifi was not available. Defender was unable to engage. It kept flashing on /off. To bypass this, I had to remove it. Once removed wifi was able to engage. I have reset my device and will try defender again. This has worked as expected in previous versions of ios

I’ve used my work calendar through the built-in Calendar app for years, but now it never stays in sync essentially rendering it unusable. Battery drain is also a real problem when this is running. To be clear, I don’t mean the percentages that are attributed to it in Settings, I mean that my phone literally dies earlier in the day on days that I have this enabled. This is the case on days with similar usage and screen on time.

Makes your apps run extremely slow. Murders your bandwidth. Cut mine by over 90%. Didn’t matter if 5G or a known safe WiFi. This app makes my phone and tablet completely unusable. The identity protection tells you your information has been leaked but won’t give you any way to fix it, doesn’t even tell you where it was leaked. What good is this? This is what Bill Gates would be if they turned him into an app. Worthless.

VPN works fine. Until you need to turn it off for a second to access something, in my case the Verizon app doesn't work over this VPN, so even if you temporarily disable this VPN it breaks WiFi until you reinstall the app. Also if you temporarily lose service it fails to reconnect correctly until you uninstall the app.

It’s ridiculous how after all these years Microsoft can’t come up with an easy way for users to use their software/tools. This app does not guide in any way or explains to users how to “fix” or resolve alerts on a step by step basis. Or whether the fix is via the phone settings or app settings. It is basically a stressful app that is continuously screaming with alerts that require login via the website for resolution.

Girlfriend used this app to spy on me

Hi. I love the app. However, I put only 3 stars for now. VPN shouldn’t be mandatory for the device protection and also the app should allow to opt out of using VPN with no reminders and requests to turn it on. Until VPN stays mandatory, I’m afraid I cannot recommend the app and put it a solid 5-star rating

Every time after voulantary shutdown, after power on VPN tries to configures and in loop and phone never connected to wifi or cellular network. I have to delete defender app and re install again

MS Defender is Frozen and it says that something went wrong after a few minutes. It would be helpful to know why it is frozen.

J’aime bien mais semble bugger avec le CarPlay. J’ai du le désinstaller. Faites moi signe quand ça fonctionnera mieux…

I’ve had this on many laptops and when fathers McCafé antivirus was trying to bill him! I made sure Windows defender was up and running supported by a purchase of a Microsoft operating system! My 82 year old father relies on Microsoft antivirus!

As of the latest iOS 26.4, MS Defender started draining my battery when I was using it. I could literally see the battery percentage drop 1 point every 5-6 minutes so I did some research and apparently this app is conflicting with Apple Security and is an extra loop to check for phishing links, also, it doesn’t do anything above and beyond what Apple security already does especially Safari’s website validation. So deleted this app from iPhone and iPad yesterday and now my battery is back to the normal. If you notice your battery draining just delete this app.

If you use Microsoft Defender with iPhone that means iCloud Private Relay won’t work with cellular plan.

VPN keeps turning on and off

Doesn’t work properly

Keeps saying there’s notification but shows no notification in app. Skype was doing this too. Some Microsoft trick to trick user into opening app?

Peut pas choisir pays ou ip tombera

I’ve had to turn the VPN off several times because I was getting zero upload speed and less than 4 mbs download speed. And I’m well below my data limit. I’d hate to see how poorly it would perform if I exceeded the limit.

After installation my iPad locked up and had to be restarted. It seemed to work after restart then after a few days the internet got really sluggish with download speeds in Kb. Also the iPad was slow and operating strangely. I uninstalled Defender and everything is now back to normal.

I had vpn enabled and it blocked redflagdeals app on my phone

Des services sont offerts, comme le VPN mais rien n’indique si ça a des impacts sur la connectivité avec les autres appareils de la maison

Devices hacked. No protection at all

The built-in VPN drags my internet connection speed down from over 500 Mbps to under 30. Turning off the VPN also turns off Web Protection and turning on Web Protection turns on the VPN. Why are there two settings when each one does the same thing? You can’t have Web Protection without the VPN on.

Not ready for prime time. Notifications for month's old items that have already been reviewed suddenly reappear and removing the notifications is painful at best. VPN is woefully slow to the point of random disconnects repeatedly. I do not recommend.

This app's VPN slows down the data speed so much it becomes unusable. Had to uninstall.

After installing the latest iOS 17 updates my phone, wifi/interned connection slowed right down. After trying to figure out what the issue was I trued turning off Automatic VPN Connection in settings. Things went right back up to normal speeds. I deleted this app and no further issues.

#DJluciolle

Needs paid subscription

Out of the box with no modifications this app caused Twitter not to load any videos, caused my bell Fibe app to not load any channels. It took me months to find the culprit.

I can’t get a reliable wifi connection at home while this is installed.

Since the last update the app is consuming copious amounts of battery life...in the 10-20% per day range ...update: 3 months later and the batter life issues continue to persist

The app constantly permits malicious websites. I’ve tried accessing multiple known bad sites I receive via email and the app permits everything. Completely unreliable.

Brings speed to a crawl, too many bugs.