[Welly Wu]

I finally bought a one year subscription for Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware software yesterday. It simply rocks. While it did not find any trace of malware on my computer, the protection monitor is worth its weight in gold. There were so many foreign IP addresses that Malwarebytes protected me from visiting even when I did not have a web browser loaded up at the moment. It is much more comprehensive than Symantec Norton 360 version 4 and runs faster.
 
I plan on purchasing a USB thumb drive soon so that I can create an emergency boot and repair kit with a password reset file for my specific computer profile.
 
This piece of software gave me a great deal of confidence and peace of mind in knowing that my laptop is clean. I am a loyal customer for life.
 
If you don't have a paid version of this program, then you should definitely get your copy and key soon. No single scanner is complete as each one catches things that others miss during their sweeps. The good thing about Malwarebytes is that it goes deep into your computer to root out malware without being a resource hog.
 
Definitely highly recommended.

 

[DaveBSC]

I'm amazed that people still use Ad-aware and even older and crappier programs like Spybot S&D when Malware-bytes is so much better. It's an essential program. I pair it with Super Anti-spyware Free Edition, which is also great.

 

[fraseyboy]

I agree. Avast and Anti-Vir failed to remove a troublesome virus back in my XP days. Malwarebytes removed it no trouble. Microsoft Security Essentials was ok but it hogged resources like a bitch and was much slower all round than Malwarebytes.
 
An amazing piece of software.

 

[Shark50521]

Quote:

I agree. Avast and Anti-Vir failed to remove a troublesome virus back in my XP days. Malwarebytes removed it no trouble. Microsoft Security Essentials was ok but it hogged resources like a bitch and was much slower all round than Malwarebytes.
 
An amazing piece of software.

Weird I have zero problems with Microsoft Security Essentials, I mean dropbox, firefox, foobar, all take up more memory for me, maybe I'm just lucky.

 

[fraseyboy]

Quote:

Weird I have zero problems with Microsoft Security Essentials, I mean dropbox, firefox, foobar, all take up more memory for me, maybe I'm just lucky.

I had issues with it randomly using up like 100% CPU and locking everything up momentarily. Probably not a problem that everybody experiences but a problem nonetheless.

 

[MCC]

MSE has a DPC latency bug that slows your machine down with heavy network traffic, esp. torrent. You can check this with a tool called dpclat.exe.
 
High latencies will cause things to stutter, starting with multimedia and working up to your Windows interface if it gets bad enough.

 

[Welly Wu]

I purchased both Super Anti-Spyware and Malwarebytes. I am going to purchase PC Tools Spyware Doctor soon. I like Spybot Search & Destroy. It catches things such as low threat level tracking cookies that the other scanners typically miss. I do not notice any slowdown on my computer. I checked using the tool mentioned above and my latency levels are okay.

 

[gngf123]

Having used a variety of antivirus in the past (Avira, AVG, Panda, and briefly avast), MSE actually is surprisingly good for a Microsoft product, and the detection rates are up there with the best (payed and non-payed), It is now something I pretty much automatically install whenever I have to do any repairs to someones computer or if I am setting up a family members computer.
 
As malware protection goes, MBAM is amazing. I haven't yet brought the full version, but the free version I have been using for some time. 
 
As for Norton, anything that is anything is better than Norton.

 

[Welly Wu]

Symantec Norton 360 Version 4 is a good product compared to the other all in one security suites. It won numerous editor's choice awards from PC Magazine and Laptop Magazine among other PC media outlets. McAfee is the worst of the bunch. McAfee Enterprise Edition is the go to security suite used by New Jersey Institute of Technology. They require that all Dell Latitude and Precision and Optiplex computers have it pre-installed as per their contractual agreement. It is better than nothing, but not by much of a margin either.
 
Malwarebytes is the most comprehensive security program that I have ever seen. Super Anti-Spyware is a very close second. Combined together, they will detect 99.99% of bad stuff and remove it on Windows computers.
 
If you can afford it, then I would highly recommend purchasing both products. They are definitely worth it.
 
Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows Defender are good products. They are not nearly as fast or comprehensive as Malwarebytes or Super Anti-Spyware, but you can install them for free and they do not take up a lot of system resources while they do their jobs in the background.
 
I pretty much paid for almost all of my security related scanners because I can not afford to have a compromised system. My grades and student loans are on the line and downtime could cost me big time.

 

[Shark50521]

I just don't think there is that much scary stuff out on the internet that you need THAT much protection, hell I ran AV free for a year because I don't torrent and I only really go to a few websites, one AV program is generally more than enough.

 

[Nebby]

I agree, I keep a good amount of these products in my toolkit for when I need to solve an issue but generally I stick with MSE and CCleaner for my standard utilities. I also have a restore image backed up so even if everything gets corrupted I can be back up and running within a hour.
 
Quote:

I just don't think there is that much scary stuff out on the internet that you need THAT much protection, hell I ran AV free for a year because I don't torrent and I only really go to a few websites, one AV program is generally more than enough.

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

I purchased both Super Anti-Spyware and Malwarebytes. I am going to purchase PC Tools Spyware Doctor soon. I like Spybot Search & Destroy. It catches things such as low threat level tracking cookies that the other scanners typically miss. I do not notice any slowdown on my computer. I checked using the tool mentioned above and my latency levels are okay.

Spyware Doctor, at least the last time I tried it, was a massive resource hog, and IMO unnecessary with Malware and Super AS. I stopped using Spybot a long time ago, it's just useless against really nasty stuff. I don't run a full time AV at all, as they seem to give me more headaches and false positives than anything useful, and I'll never have to worry about a bad definition update nuking my PC. One of my absolute favorite tools though is the Virustotal uploader. I can have anything that looks remotely suspicious checked by 43 different AV programs in about a minute.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

I would suggest a different approach to security.  You don't need to buy yet another scanning program aimed at the unwashed consumer.  You're going into the computer field.  You should learn what is behind actual security, how to secure the OS and limit the attack vulnerabilities, what the OS has built in that you can take advantage of to improve the security, things like that.  Yet another malware scanning program isn't going to help.  I've been playing with computers since the days of the Sinclair and original Apple.  Not once in all that time has an active virus/malware scanner actually protected me from anything.  Not once has it identified something or protected me from an unknown that I didn't already know was there or wasn't already protected from (because I had already patched so whatever was identified was not a threat that would have actually got me).  All active scanning has done is annoy me and get in my way.  It has never actually protected me in 30 years of computer use.  I do run an active AV even though it annoys me, but I hate the thing.
 
Save your money.  You don't need more stuff from Symantec or another company.  There's good security software available for free if you're a home user or student.  Take advantage of it.
 
Learn what it is that makes a computer system more secure.  Things like:
 
What ASLR and DEP are and how to take advantage of those features.  What do they do?  How do you get DEP to protect all processes rather than just Windows processes that opt-in?
 
Learn about tools like Microsoft's Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET).  Using it properly can protect you from unknown and known but unpatched vulnerabilties.  For example it protected against the last Adobe Acrobat vulnerability that took Adobe almost a month to patch while it was being actively exploited.
 
Read sites like Secunia to keep up with what software is vulnerable and being exploited.  You can also find out when patches are available and keep your computer patched up and current.
 
Learn about tools like Secunia PSI which will scan your computer for software that is unpatched or vulnerable.  The next version of Secunia PSI has some neat features planned for helping you keep patched.
 
Learn about tools like Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer.  It covers some basic security hardening steps.
 
Learn about tools like Filehippo Update Checker that will scan your computer for several popular programs and let you know when there are updates.  The updates are often security issues.  It checks some of the biggies that often get exploited like Adobe Acrobat, Flash, browsers, QuickTime, and Java.
 
Learn about disabling unnecessary services.  Disabling unnecessary services will protect you from current and future exploits that attack those services.  See sites like BlackViper that help you know what can be disabled.
 
Don't run warez.  If you absolutely must browse warez and pR0n learn how to do so safely and smartly.  Don't run any keygens or try to get a free copy of PhotoShop.  So many problems come from people running warez and software that can't be trusted.
 
Learn to be smart.  That's far more important than running yet another malware scanner.  And you'll save money that can be better spent on headphones and music.

 

[moriez]

I will try the free version of this app as on-demand.
 
On a side-note: recently I started a thread on WildersSecurity and might be of use to some of you. Peeps over there are way into it.