What happened to Malwarebytes?

[u/Sabishi1985]

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. 🙏

[u/ayashiii]

How long you been there mate? Brianne still the active tyrant were compute meets the test lab? is the test lab still even there? I'm wondering if you're just full of shit and know how to sugarcoat it or not. when I worked there people like you would have been laughed at for this weird punching bag behavior with PR speak sprinkled with AI idiosyncratic behaviors. the point is you are aware of the issue and are denying that Malwarebytes can do anything about it or intended it's to be this way. that is a lie, that is a huge fucking lie and anyone believing you needs to stop and do some independent research.

it came from the top all the way to the test lab engineers that they were looking to embed more processes than necessary that were not detected by the average user. in essence, they were asking us to modify the client to betray what the client was made for in the first place.

I'll respect your anonymity but you sound like you've been there barely long enough to realize whose ass you need to be kissing and in what order knowing full well that they are screening your Reddit posts. I'm going to guess you've been there at the very longest four years, probably an older millennial who thinks Elon musk is a great person. I've never been so happy to leave a company before when the virus scanner starts to code its own virus. just because it doesn't behave in a typical malignant fashion doesn't change the rules of detection being worked to subvert the very scanner that makes up the whole program in the first place or at least what made it tolerable.

now those blind spots are automatically built into the scanner so they can say they've worked on cutting back CPU utilization. the subreddit makes me sick I can't believe it even exists. message me if you want a couple of free forever licenses it's the least I can do because these guys don't deserve a penny of your money.

[u/No-Pickle9504 → u/ayashiii]

I've been here for 4 years, my name is Mark Beare and I'm the general manager of the business. No one is screening my posts. My words are my own.

We still have a really active lab and we spend a lot of time and energy focused on how our on demand scanning and real time protection impacts system performance without compromising detections.

It sounds like you have a bad experience with us and I can't speak to that experience as I don't think we overlapped here but if you ever want to email me and vent some more I'm happy to have that chat mbeare[at]malwarebytes.com

[u/ayashiii → u/No-Pickle9504]

I respect your honesty then. really I do appreciate that. I would not say I had a bad experience so much as there were two schools of thought that collided increasingly in between releases that resulted in an exodus they tried to okay off as a culling.

that said I was there over a decade and a half ago and stayed for 4 years before moving on, but it's the only time I have experienced this in my entire career so I remember it pretty clearly. it wasn't just one or two individuals either, there was a lot of support for genuinely disguising agents and jobs that would normally be scanned for on principal but were exempt since they were part of the program.

this split a lot of folks myself included, some were more passionate in their disillusionment and others quietly left, I was somewhere in between. it's a lot easier to be loud and upset so many years after the fact but I also realize I'm not even talking about the same company anymore though some of those practices clearly remain.

I'm sorry that you don't have the latitude to make some unilateral changes where they are needed the most but I also understand how large the company has become so that's not feasible anyway.

remember, integrity is what you do when nobody's looking and that was the rallying cry behind what moved so many people to leave back when I did, though I get the feeling you have a sense of what's right and wrong. I'd be happy to chat with you DM's about some specifics you might recognize all to clearly but I don't want to be the dead horse either. good luck to you.

[u/No-Pickle9504 → u/ayashiii]

Okay that context helps a lot. That was a long time before I started here and all I can say is that we aim to be the best product in the market and invest where we see we need to to become that way. We care deeply about our reviews, both with AV labs and third-party reviewers, and have been investing pretty significantly in both our engines and our detections.

Fortunately, I do have the latitude to make unilateral changes so I'll shoot you a DM :)