Note that Malwarebytes also has a free version, which is limited to on-demand scanning (without real-time protection). You’ll have no way of knowing whether these articles are essentially just product-placement. Just keep in mind that any source may be biased. It will detect even more malware, and is updated faster.

this one) will suggest that you run the Desktop product from Malwarebytes alongside Windows Defender. Many articles with the same sentiment as this article (e.g. Its detection rate is on par with third party alternatives (depending on the source)Īs for the last point, I recommend that you do an Internet search for Windows Defender’s detection rate at the time you read this article. In general, there are many problems with anti-malware and firewall products of third party vendors: Reasons for avoiding third party products Rest assured that there is money involved behind the scenes.

You’ll find crafty product placements hidden in “informative” articles of digital or print computer magazines that run ridiculous comparison tests that tell you how many percent of a selected set of threats were detected by each vendor. They promote their products with terms incomprehensible for the layman, triggering your primal instincts of fear. However, the marketing machinery of the security software industry is still going strong. As I’ll discuss shortly, you typically don’t need these tools anymore.

Sometimes they include a separate firewall, sometimes they just constantly monitor your system for malware. This is why third party vendors such as Kaspersky, Comodo, Avira, Symantec, McAfee and many others offer “Internet Security suites” to protect you from these threats. Most commonly, you can infected via email, browsing, or opening bad files from USB or network drives. Nowadays people are targeted by malware, which is a generic term that includes viruses, worms, trojan horses, adware, bots, ransomware, miners, potentially unwanted applications (PUA) and many more. Things have changed quite a bit since then, even though all these products still exist. Sometimes this had to be done even before connecting the machine to the Internet, to avoid immediate infection. Until a few years ago, whenever I set up my own Windows-based machines, I used to install a software firewall and some antivirus application. Configure and tweak the Windows firewall.The wrong reason to use a third party firewall.How to choose your anti-malware solution.Reasons for avoiding third party products.

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