Starting early this month, Windows 10 (via Microsoft Defender antivirus and Microsoft Edge browser) will begin automatically block potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) by default.
The term ‘PUP’ (or ‘PUA’) refers to some applications that, according to some criteria, they could be considered malicious … but technically they are not malwareTherefore, the decision to eliminate it or not is usually left to the user’s assessment.
That legitimate software is classified as a PUP is due, in many cases, to bad practices of its developer (misleading distribution methods, poor privacy, excessive ad inclusion) or to controversial features (alteration of system configurations, crypto mining), etc.
Changes to Windows 10 security settings
The most modern builds of Windows 10 (as of 2004, specifically) add a new section to Windows security settings called ‘Blocking potentially unwanted applications’ which, since its launch, has been disabled by default.
However, now Microsoft is going to enable that option –without prior notice to the user-, “to make it easier for you to keep your systems running at maximum,” as announced by the company a few hours ago in a short support bulletin.
This setting can be altered (either to enable it before Microsoft does, or to disable it if it has already done so) by accessing ‘Browser and application control> Reputation-based protection> Blocking potentially unwanted applications’ in Windows Security.
In addition, once this change takes effect, the configuration will also differentiate between two options: “Block applications” and “Block downloads”, as seen in the following image:
When you enable the first one, Microsoft Defender will start include PUPs in your regular scanning operations of files in real time, while with the second Edge will leave the quarantine in the hands of SmartScreen of the newly downloaded files.
In case this new function recognizes as PUP some legitimate software that we have voluntarily downloaded and executed, it is best to set exceptions in the Microsoft Defender configuration instead of disabling this protection en bloc.