Info on free vs. paid verison of Malwarebytes?

[Jimmy9190]

I was trying to find info on what benefits there are with the paid subscription of MWB. I did do a search but did not find much info.

Is there any advantage to the paid version of MWB? I had to remove my paid AVG virus program and am now using MSE again. I have the free MWB edition but I wonder if their real time protection is worth the cost?

I appreciate any pros, cons or other info on it. Thanks.

 

[ChrisD46]

I run the free version - as long as you download the updates and scan manually every couple of weeks you should be fine .
The paid version I believe allows you to schedule a scan in advance which I don't need - a manual scan works just fine ...

 

[ABerns]

I'd just keep MSE installed - it'll provide sufficient real-time protection. Use a little sense on the web, as well - that goes a long way. Finally, run semi-regular scans of the free MBAM.

Decent protection, and free!

 

[Jimmy9190]

Thanks for the info. My computer is running faster with MSE than it did with AVG. For some reason this morning the MWB icon was missing from my system tray. It used to have a MWB icon right next to the MSE icon, down by the clock. I re-downloaded the latest version of MWB today, did the quick scan and re-started my computer but still have no icon in the tray. Is that anything to worry about and how do you get the icon back the tray? I wonder what removed it from the tray to begin with?

When I right click the system tray and click tool bars, I see the MWB icon reappear along with a "show desktop" shortcut icon, but they are now on the left side of the tool bar. I wonder why that is?

Thanks for your help.

 

[gathermewool]

MSE + MWB (free version) here. I've got my real-time protection and manual backup, which is perfect.

 

[punisher]

I have the paid version of MWB. I had it running in conjunction with MSE, and it really slugged down my system. Alone, it was fine, MSE was fine by itself, but together= problem child.

MWB, the free version/on demand scanner MWB, seems to me the best way to go now. At least that is what I went back to.

 

[Jimmy9190]

Yep I like MSE and MWB too. Both are 100% free and both work very well on my computer. Computer is pretty fast for what it is, a 6 year old Dell with an 80 Gig hard drive and only 1022 mb of memory.

I bought that paid version of AVG back in December when I picked up a nasty fake anti-virus bug. Computer worked OK with the AVG until now but I reinstalled Itunes a few days ago. Itunes did not mix well with AVG on my computer, it was slow and the internet was slow too. So I removed AVG to be able to use Itunes, and I went back with the much lighter MSE.

I have been running MWB for a long time now too. I have one more license on the paid AVG program that I can use if I ever get a better computer, but for now this will work fine. Thanks for your help here.

 

[GrtArtiste]

MSE + free Malwarebytes + Superantispyware running on a 5 yr old Dell XP SP3 & 4 yr old Dell running Vista = no worries so far. Daily updates and weekly scans.

 

[Jimmy9190]

I use Super Anti Spyware too. I update it and scan with it just about every day. SAS and MWB are the most effective free programs I have found, and I found out about those and MSE here on BITOG. I have my MSE set for nightly updates and I have Windows XP, SP 3 too. I have learned a lot more about my computer here on BITOG than anywhere else online, but I have a long way to go as far as my computer literacy is concerned....

 

[ahoier]

AFAIK the only difference is the "auto update" feature, and the "Startup Automatically on Reboot" every time you turn the computer on...

Think that's it....

Oooohhh, it's also got an "active scanner" feature, that basically scans every file, page, download, that passes through your computer as "preventative" protection, that is only available in the paid version...


So basically, if you are a fairly safe PC user, don't download lots of software, or at least can remember to "manually" scan any software before running.....stick with the free version

 

[buickman50401]

Originally Posted By: Jimmy9190
I use Super Anti Spyware too. I update it and scan with it just about every day. SAS and MWB are the most effective free programs I have found, and I found out about those and MSE here on BITOG. I have my MSE set for nightly updates and I have Windows XP, SP 3 too. I have learned a lot more about my computer here on BITOG than anywhere else online, but I have a long way to go as far as my computer literacy is concerned....

I've gotten away from using SAS despite having bought a lifetime license about 4 years ago. I just doesn't seem to be able to clean up systems as well as MWB. It tosses up all sorts of warnings about cookies but misses some of the really nasty trojans and other garbage.

 

[Jimmy9190]

I noticed that SAS really just gets rid of cookies and other tracking garbage that gets on my computer. The computer does run faster though after I do a SAS scan. MWB has alerted me to problems too, back in December when I got that fake Antivirus 2012 bug I did not have MWB installed. I had temporarily removed it, I don't remember why. Then the next day I picked up that fake AV bug from the image shack pic hosting web site. MWB was very effective in removing the fake AV bug, but I could not have gotten rid of it without the help I received here. I remember you (Buickman) helped me with that, you told me how to use Rkill, Combofix and MWB to get rid of the bug, and it worked great.

AVG finds malware and spyware and I guess it is a good AV program but I can't use Itunes with AVG for some reason. Maybe because they are both resource hogs. MSE is half the size of AVG and Itunes works OK now. Itunes 10.5 has a problem with slow importing of music files but that is a fault of Itunes, not my computer. As soon as I get my Ipod re-synched again I am switching my music managment over to Media Monkey and hopefully I can be done with Itunes forever.

I realy don't go to any questionable or unsavory web sites. I just visit here on BITOG, gasbuddy.com and a handful of other legit automotive forums, I visit Crutchfield and a couple other electronics/car audio sites, and I use Facebook to keep up with my daughter who is away at college. I play chess on Yahoo and I have a legit web site for a few retro 1980's video games. I probably kill too much of my time playing Asteroids and Tetris online. Unless I am researching a car or house problem on Google or Ask.com, I don't really use any other web sites, my web habits are pretty much rated G. Hopefully I won't have any computer issues again for a long time.

 

[buickman50401]

Jimmy, there is a way to use iTunes without having all the garbage running in the background. I use it only for podcasts and went to the trouble of disabling all the [censored] it wants to load at startup.

However, if you're just going to ditch it completely be aware that IIRC it leaves behind some things that still set there chewing up resources.

Let us know on here when you're going to remove it and I'll look into what might still need to be stripped out after an uninstall.

 

[Jimmy9190]

Thanks again for your help Buickman. I was able to synch my Ipod again today. Now that it is done, I would like to continue using Itunes, but only for music files. I don't do Podcasts, movies, video or any of the other stuff on Itunes. I like the sound of Apple's m4a and AAC music files, they sound 100% better to me than plain MP3's on a flash drive. Media Monkey does not record in or play back in AAC format. Occasionally I will buy music from the Itunes store or Amazon, but most of the time I just check out CD's from the library and import them to Itunes. I have gotten a lot of free music that way. So I need to keep Itunes, but I do want to try the stripped down version, My computer works OK now but I would like to give it all the help it can get.

So before I install the stripped version of Itunes, what do I need to do completely remove Itunes from my computer? When I removed it last year I just used add/remove programs and removed Itunes, Bonjour, Quick Time and the Apple Support programs.

I am guessing I need to remove Itunes first and then reinstall it but use the zip file applications to only unpack the parts of Itunes I really need. My computer does OK as is, but I know it will be faster and more effecient without any bloat from Itunes. I appreciate any help you can offer with this. Thanks.

 

[Jimmy9190]

I found a good web tutorial page to completely remove Itunes from my computer here:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/23959/com...ndows-computer/

I had no idea that Itunes was so invasive, and I had no idea that even if you remove it with Add/Remove Programs it would still leave so much other junk behind. I downloaded a 30 day free trial of Revo Pro and used it to get rid of Itunes and it worked perfectly. Computer is a lot faster without Itunes hogging my memory. I ran CCleaner to clean my registry too.

Next I will try the stripped down itunes install. If you have any info on that I would appreciate it. Thanks for all the help here.