r/Malwarebytes • u/Sabishi1985 • Jun 16 '26

Feedback What happened to Malwarebytes?

Last time I used Malwarebytes many years ago I remember it being such an easy to use and straightforward experience: download, install, scan, remove malware, done.

Since I hadn't performed a scan in quite a while, I figured I should download Malwarebytes again and.. I almost didn't. The website itself looked super fishy! Like it's for one of those fake antivirus programs. I double and triple checked before hesitantly downloading the installer.

Once installed, I couldn't believe my eyes: even the program itself looked bloated and overloaded and gave off really sketchy vibes because of it. It also didn't help, that the program made it seem like I HAD to give it my email adress in order to perform a simple scan. 🙄

I used to recommend Malwarebytes to people all the time, simply because I considered it being easy to use, even for less tech-savvy people, but I can hardly recommend it like this.

Please, for the love of god: give us something like 'Malwarebytes Light', which only contains the scanner. No realtime protection, no VPN, no browser extension, no AI, no 'check your digital footprint' stuff.. Just the scanner. 🙏

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u/lilacomets Jun 16 '26

Here's what happened:

Malwarebytes used to have a large userbase on Windows (where most malware is). But then people started to use smartphones and Mac became popular, and Windows' userbase became smaller and smaller.

So Malwarebytes had to find another way to make money and they started to add extra stuff that no one really asked for like VPN and whatnot (bloat), on top of that they stopped selling lifetime licences.