My Malwarebytes subscription expired last week. I haven’t renewed it, in fact I uninstalled it several months ago. I uninstalled it because it was sucking battery power, causing the fans to race for hours. Also, it never reported anything at all, so I figured what’s there to lose if I uninstall it. (I’m on a 5 year old Intel MacBook.)
The subscription is $85 I could spend on books or something. I’m only asking because maybe there’s something obvious of value that’s worth the $85.
(Of course, as soon as my subscription lapsed the “today only 50% off if you renew” emails started. Kind of off-putting, those messages.)
I have only used the free version. I have a recurring task to run it every two weeks. I feel I’m generally safe and I’m not sure I have ever found anything on my computer. But I help a lot of people and I’ve seen it flag so much stuff.
I run a scan with the free version of Malwarebytes periodically or if I download something I’m not 100% absolutely sure about. So far I’m happy with that approach, which isn’t costing me a dime and doesn’t use system resources when it’s not running.
There’s also a free Bitdefender scanner in the Mac App Store in case you want a second opinion on whether your system is clean.
If you’re careful and you regularly install OS updates, you probably don’t need anything, with 2 caveats
that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t unwittingly pass something to a Windows user if you share files with them
There are few, if any, vulnerabilities which can be exploited on macOS. Apple is very quick to provide patches for them. But that doesn’t mean that there’s never going to be anything which could affect you.
I figure running a free scan occasionally is similar to buying insurance. I’ll probably never need it, but if I ever do I’ll be glad I did it.
Also, older versions of macOS like the one that may be running on Katie’s Intel MB don’t get security updates as fast as the current version, so they may be more vulnerable.
I’ve never thought about false flags but I know in some cases, things were seemingly off and when I ran Malwarebytes, it caught a bunch of things. It’s been awhile so I don’t have specifics.
I know two family members had some issues. One was being sent to a page that looked like google search but it wasn’t. It had ads on it.
I don’t think you need to subscribe. Like others in this thread I have a recurring task to run a scan with the free version.
It’s picked up malware several times, in my case all in Node Package Manger (NPM) downloads. There is a lot of malware in those types of repositories so if you’re a developer that uses them, it makes sense to do regular scans.
If you only download from the App Store and don’t use any other package managers I’m not sure if you need to really, but better safe than sorry.
I believe that the free version of Malwarebytes more than enough for most Users.
However, when I dealt with “repeat customers” at the Genius Bar who came in for Malware problems on a monthly basis, I WOULD encourage them to purchase the software. If they want to avoid it, then they can pay for it. Saves them time from coming into the store and waiting for an appointment. Saves me from repeatedly giving good advice about not going to sketchy websites or opening emails with links to sketchy websites and not be listened to.
Yes Grandma and Grandpa… I am talking to you, but you still aren’t listening!
Thank everyone for the help. I only subscribed for a year, and never had a problem before, or since I removed Malwarebytes. At least, not a problem I know about
I always have current versions of macOS and the security patches (14.5 now). I only buy App Store apps, or from SetApp, and rarely from a developer who provides more features in their own download than the App Store version. (E.g., Curio.). Email is all scanned by SpamSieve. I’ll even avoid Obsidian plugins if the “downloaded” count is lower than 50K, figuring if the plugin has a bad reputation I’ll avoid it. I won’t install software from GitHub. So, overall, I think my anti-malware hygiene is conservative and the extra $85 is better off in my pocket.
Unfortunately that hasn’t been true for years. If you drill down on Apple’s support page you can see references like “An attacker may be able to access user data”, and “An app may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges”. And you can search for the CVE numbers to find more details.
As Apple products have grown in popularity they have also become bigger targets.
I’ve used Malwarebytes off and on through the years. On Windows it is always the same problem - false positives. Security people recommend reformatting if you have real malware on your hard drive, not just depending on an antivirus to remove it. The rationale is that if malware was able to get on your system, there may be additional malware that hasn’t been detected. So a false positive is a big deal until it is confirmed to be false, and that can take a lot of time.
On my Mac Malwarebytes has never detected anything, real or false. So I guess that is good. I subscribe to CleanMyMac X, however, which has a built-in antimalware (Moonlock), so I don’t think that I would need anything additional. As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, Apple has a robust (nothing is perfect) antimalware system, though it runs in the background, and Apple doesn’t talk about it.
Back to Windows. The security expert, Steve Gibson, recommends that Microsoft Defender is sufficient, “And I said, oh, lord, no. I said, you know, Windows’ built-in Defender is really all anybody needs. And I explained that Microsoft does this.”. In the same episode, however, he sites a major Microsoft Defender failure, “Now, okay, remember that last week Kevin Beaumont deliberately used known-to-Microsoft info-stealer malware, which Windows Defender was so slow to recognize that the info-stealer had already successfully exfiltrated the user’s entire Recall history before Defender woke up and shut it down.” So go figure.
After I dumped Malwarebytes for false positives (again), I tried Bitdefender, but it wouldn’t run at all. Their support said that it was a flaw in their program, and that they were working on it. So I’m trying Norton though it has had a checkered past, and I don’t know if it is better or worse than Microsoft Defender. It certainly has a difficult interface.
