Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware (MBAM) is a computer application that finds and removes malware.^[3] Made by Malwarebytes Corporation, it was released in January 2008. It is available in a free version, which scans for and removes malware when started manually, and a paid version, which provides scheduled scans, real-time protection and a flash memory scanner.

Overview

MBAM is intended to find malware that other anti-virus and anti-spyware programs generally miss, including rogue security software, adware, and spyware. MBAM therefore does not interfere with existing anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on the computer.^[4][5]

MBAM is available in both a free and a paid edition.^[3] The free edition must be run manually, while the paid version can automatically perform scheduled scans. The paid version also adds real-time protection, IP based blocking to prevent access to malicious web sites and a flash memory scan option, which only scans the open services, programs and drivers.^[6]

MBAM is available in Arabic, Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.^[2]

Reception

• PC World's Preston Gralla wrote that "Using Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware is simplicity itself".^[3]
• CNET cited Malwarebytes as being useful against the MS Antivirus malware.^[7] CNET awarded it April 2009 Editor's Choice along with 25 other computer applications^[6][8]
• Bleeping Computer has listed Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware as a method of removing fake security applications such as MS Antivirus^[9][10]
• Mark Gibbs of Network World gave Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 4 out of 5 and wrote that "It does the job and only the lack of a detailed explanation of what it has found stops it from getting 5 out of 5."^[11]
• PC Magazine gave Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 3.5 out of 5, pointing out that although the product is good at removing malware and scareware, it fell short on removing keyloggers and rootkits.^[12]

Controversy

On November 2, 2009, Malwarebytes accused^[13] rival IOBit of incorporating the database of Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware (and several products from other vendors, which were not named) in its security software IObit Security 360. IOBit denied the accusation and stated that the database is based on user submissions, and sometimes the same signature names that are in Malwarebytes get placed in the results. They said they did not have time to filter out the signature names that are similar to Malwarebytes. IOBit also stated that Malwarebytes does not have convincing proof, and promised that the databases were not stolen.^[14] After the declaration from IOBit, Malwarebytes replied that they are not convinced of the argument from IOBit.^[15][16] Malwarebytes claims to have served DMCA infringement notices against CNET, Download.com and MajorGeeks.com in order to have the download sites remove the IOBit software.^[17] IObit said that as of Version 1.30, their database has been updated to address those accusations of intellectual property theft made earlier by Malwarebytes.^[18]

See also

• List of antivirus software

References

External links

• Official website