Friday, November 6, 2009

Recommended Security Tool - Malwarebytes

Sadly, malware is pretty ubiquitous in the Windows universe. It's getting sneakier, so it's more likely to get onto your computer. It actively tries to hide from antivirus programs, so detection rates are declining. And it digs itself into your system, so that if you only remove some of the files, it regenerates itself - kind of like electronic Kudzu.

One approach is to move to Linux or Mac, but that's not practical for lots of folks. So what do you do?

Try Malwarebytes:
Anyway, the bottom line is that Malwarebytes Anti-Malware looks like the answer. The tool is free but a "full" version with real-time protection, scheduled scanning and scheduled updating is available for $24.95. I'll give Anti-Malware 4 out of 5. It does the job and only the lack of a detailed explanation of what it has found stops it from getting 5 out of 5. Highly recommended all the same.


Full disclosure:I haven't run Malwarebytes myself. However, the IT guy at work has had good experiences with this removing the really nasty, hard to uninstall malware.

5 comments:

  1. wolfwalkerNovember 6, 2009 at 9:58 AM

    I first learned about MalwareBytes when I was spending a few hours a week helping in a local computer repair shop. It was the tool that the shop owner depended on most to clean viruses off customers' machines. And it was pretty damn good at it -- able to clean stuff that the big engines like McAfee never even saw.

    Now I use MalwareBytes as a second line behind my regular malware-scanner. Run it manually once a week or so, for which the freeware version is good enough.

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  2. ASM826November 6, 2009 at 11:23 AM

    I use it all the time. Quick, effective, and it hasn't added to the damage on any system that I know of.

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  3. NotClauswitzNovember 6, 2009 at 6:25 PM

    I have it here and on the netbook.

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  4. PaladinNovember 6, 2009 at 7:00 PM

    Oddly enough, I spent a couple of hours pulling my hair out today. I'm not completely bald because I was able to finally download and run this program successfully.

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  5. John the TexanerNovember 7, 2009 at 12:28 AM

    I went the Linux route back in 2001. ;)

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