In Windows 10, there is a feature called “SmartScreen” that helps to protect your PC from downloaded malicious software and malware. You can see this feature in Task Manager with the file name “smartscreen.exe”.
Now, let’s learn about this feature in detail…
What is SmartScreen in Windows 10?
In Windows 10, you’ll get to see an improved version of SmartScreen when compared to Windows 8. Whenever you download an application or a file, the SmartScreen filter will take a tab on checking it against the MS database. If it finds the downloaded content to be known and safe, it will allow it to run. If it has been seen before and believed to be harmful, SmartScreen will block it.
If the downloaded stuff is not being seen before and when Windows is not sure whether it is safe or not, then it will prevent the app from starting and warns you that it may be dangerous. However, you can ignore this warning message and proceed.
This feature can also be seen it Microsoft Edge and Store apps to help prevent malicious web content. No matter what application you use to download files, SmartScreen will help protect you. It also helps you if you are using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox as your browser.
Precisely, we can say that SmartScreen is another layer of security along with Windows Defender. However, having multiple security layers is important even though you run some other antivirus application or if your browser has its own set of anti-malware features.
How much CPU power and memory will be used by SmartScreen?
The process of SmartScreen runs in the background and uses no system resources or very little resources. Also, Windows may automatically close the process at times when it isn’t being used, so you may not even always see it running in the background.
However, if you have SmartScreen enabled and you download a new application or file, SmartScreen gets started. Windows launch it if it isn’t already running and you’ll see it use a bit of CPU and memory resources as it computes a hash of the file, sends that to Microsoft’s servers, and waits for a response to see if the file is safe. If it is considered as safe, Windows launches the application or file normally.
For antivirus checks, the SmartScreen filter is used, which are performed by the Antimalware Service Executable process if you’re using the default Windows Defender as your antivirus program. Further, the amount of CPU and memory used should be fairly small and the entire process should be very quick, although larger files will take longer to examine than smaller files. This check is only performed the first time you open a downloaded program or file, so it doesn’t just waste resources every time you open an application.
Disabling Windows 10 SmartScreen
Well, it is not possible to fully disable the SmartScreen process. Even if you turn off the SmartScreen feature in Windows, the SmartScreen process still launches when you sign into your PC. As it uses no CPU resources and only a few megabytes of memory, you can forcibly end this process from the Task Manager, but Windows just launches it again automatically when it’s needed.
Of course you can prevent the SmartScreen process from using CPU and memory resources in the background by disabling the SmartScreen feature. But it is not recommended though! SmartScreen is a useful security feature that can help protect your PC from malware. Even if you have other security software installed, SmartScreen can protect you from something your main security program might miss. However, it only uses a tiny amount of system resources.
If you still want to disable the SmartScreen filter, go to Windows Defender Security Center > App & Browser Control, and then set “Check apps and files” to “Off” in Windows 10.
So far, there are no reports of malware imitating the SmartScreen or smartscreen.exe process. This process is a part of Windows 10 and helps protect your PC from malware, although no security solution is perfect. If you still concerned about the malware running on your system, it’s always a good idea to run a scan with your preferred antivirus program just to check that everything is fine.
If your PC is not scanned properly and virus enters into your system, then there are chances that hard drive may go inaccessible and you need to format the drive in order to get back to the normal state. But if you want to recover Windows hard drive without formatting, then should make use of Hi5 Partition Recovery Software that helps in easy restoration of data in simple steps.
