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surfbug

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 20, 2017
152
8
Is it safe to use malwarebytes software on my Imac or waste of time?
 
It's a waste of time. It finishes the scan in 2 seconds and will never find anything.
All it means is that there's nothing to find on your Mac. Bravo, you haven't been tricked into downloading a bogus "Adobe Flash update" or other shady internet download.

In my experience helping people who do fall for such things, Malwarebytes is very effective at dealing with the consequences - adware (browser exploits - redirects, popups and ad insertions, etc.) and hard-to-remove popups for "helpful" utilities. It doesn't take long to locate those - they're very well-known exploits, mostly taking advantage of web browsers' support for plug-ins, extensions, and other modifications.

If you expect some sort of deep scan of the sort performed by a classic Windows anti-virus? MacOS doesn't have a huge catalog of known exploits of that sort (billions and billions of virus signatures) - once those are known they're dealt with by the OS. Malwarebytes focuses on the stuff the OS (and for that matter, many classic anti-virus apps ) doesn't deal with because the internet demands a certain level of openness and adaptability.
 
Just install the free version and use it to scan every once in a while. It does indeed work and is a legit product. The Windows version also works pretty well on Windows systems if you also need to check Bootcamp. It does NOT find everything and anything like some products attempt to do; it doesn't look for phishing emails, doesn't scan for windows malware in your email attachments or downloads, etc. It scans specifically for Mac malware, and thats it. I routinely use it to scan systems for adware, which is now a pretty common issue on Macs unfortunately.
 
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It’s just a placebo unless you’re sharing files with a Windows computer. Just browse smart and utilize the security preference pane.
 
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It's a waste of time. It finishes the scan in 2 seconds and will never find anything.

Actually, the first time I used it, it not only found something but also solved the problem I was having. I had been having major problems with Apple Mail on a month-old Mac, contacted AppleCare. After trying a wide variety of solutions, none of which worked, the senior advisor working with me suggested we try Malwarebytes as a Hail Mary pass. Malware found. Problem solved. (Note: the malware it found was not found in a scan using CleanMyMac.)

As for the folks who suggest browsing smart, I agree and I try to do so. But obviously I messed up somewhere. There's a first time for everything. Seriously, this software is legit and the price is right. Nuff said.
 
It’s just a placebo unless you’re sharing files with a Windows computer. Just browse smart and utilize the security preference pane.
That's incorrect. It's designed to search for and remove adware/malware specific to Macs.
 
Yeah. My point was you won’t get any malware if you browse smart and use the security preference pane.

I got malware when I downloaded Handbrake from the official site a couple of years ago. Their server had been compromised for a short while and I just happened to get it at that time.

Now I run it before and after I install anything.

So…your point is off the mark.
 
I got malware when I downloaded Handbrake from the official site a couple of years ago. Their server had been compromised for a short while and I just happened to get it at that time.

Now I run it before and after I install anything.

So…your point is off the mark.
Goodness. And when you start getting alerted by the app sandboxing of security preference pane, you know it’s trying to do something it shouldn’t be.
 
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In my experience, Malwarebytes is effective about 99% of the time (and the scan does take some time, on both of my Macs). But every once in a while, it does not catch something "obscure". Hence, that is why I have CalmXAV, which has caught some things that Malwarebytes did not detect.
 
MalwareBytes is fine and does it’s job well assuming you keep it’s definitions up to date. I did not like their new business model so swapped to DetectX Swift which seems to have better support and work’s well even though I have only had one instance of found malware since I installed it.
 
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