In 2019, Microsoft surprised locals and strangers by launching Windows Defender, its antivirus available for Windows 10, for computers managed by macOS, an antivirus that is only available for companies and that has just updated to work natively with Apple’s M1 processors.
This antivirus, dubbed Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, is now available to all business customers through Microsoft AutoUpdate. Initially it will be distributed among all those users who are part of the beta program and in the coming weeks it will be extended to all users.
In the post in which Microsoft has made the announcement, we can read:
We are delighted to announce that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint on Mac is now natively compatible with devices based on the Apple M1 chip! The update will offer our latest unified package that is designed to work flawlessly on M1-based and Intel-based Mac devices.
With the release of this version, customers who were using this antivirus so far had to make use of the Rosetta 2 emulator, an emulator that will not be necessary. According to the company, the antivirus it will work the same way it already works on computers managed by an Intel processor.
The company has not mentioned the best performance offered by this antivirus on computers managed by the M1 processor. But, if we consider that in Windows 10 it is practically invisible, the user experience was most likely the same on computers managed with Intel processors and also on computers with Apple’s silicon processors.
