There is nothing Microsoft I would consider “top tier” when it comes to security.
Defender does a great job for many AV tasks. Crowdstrike does more, and protection isn’t tied to windows updates.
This isn’t a situation where companies just chose not to use the free item, the free item has other costs (management overhead) and is missing some features.
The best answer, of course, is to not use windows for anything that needs to be secure.
Remember guys, it took about a decade for Solar Winds to discover somebody had root access to everybody that used their software, another decade for somebody outside Solar Winds to discover it and tell everybody, and half a decade with nobody claiming to have solved the issue up to now.
So when you believe that your computer with an EDS is safe just because you can’t use it, think again.
