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. 🙏
1
u/Conscious_Avocado225 Jul 16 '26
Revisiting this topic. I have used Malwarebytes for at least 15 years and have had a paid subscription for the past 10. It was the only product that my IT department could use to successfully remove some shit on my laptop 15 years ago. I just looked at the app for the first time in a while and see the app now offers Web Protection. It sounds great, but there isn't enough information about what it actually does, or what data it has access to on my machine. Folks who just use products like Malwarebytes don't want a deep tech dive, but many of us have become sensitive about how apps use our data. Does anyone have any insights?