Malwarebytes to the Rescue

Many times in the past few years I’ve had a frantic call from a family member or a friend whose computer has either slowed to a crawl or is acting strangely. The first thing that I do is have them go to www.malwarebytes.com and to install the free version of Malwarebytes and run a scan. I’d say about 9 times out of 10, the program finds tons of malware and other nasty stuff. The computer starts running much faster and my friend or family member things I’m a hero!

The next question I’m usually asked is how can they prevent this type of thing from happening again? I follow this with my own question – are you willing to spend a bit of money to fix this? If they’re willing to spend about $50 per computer for year then I point them to the full version of Malwarebyes:

Malwarebytes for Home | Anti-Malware Premium | Free Trial Download

Link to purchase Malwarebytes

Full disclosure – if you purchase by downloading from the above link, I will make a small commission on your purchase, at no cost to you.

Whether you purchase from here now or at elsewhere in the future, I highly recommend Malwarebytes. Think of it as having a permanent security guard always watching your computer to make sure that nasty malware is stopped in its tracks. That is essentially the difference between the paid and free version. The paid version is always running and you might not even know that it’s removing malware when you click on a link to a website.

I recommend downloading and installing the free version and doing a scan of your computer. You just may find that things run a lot more smoothly afterwards. Then you can decide if and when you are ready to purchase the full version for always-on protection.

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You don’t need antivirus software

What’s that? I can just picture the look on your face when you read the post subject line. I don’t need antivirus software!?

shocked look

Ok, I’m not being completely honest. While you don’t ‘need’ antivirus software, I still recommend it. Good antivirus software may prevent a nasty virus from hitting your computer.

For years we’ve been advised to have antivirus software on our computers to protect us from deadly viruses that can corrupt or destroy our important files. And if you properly protect your important files then it doesn’t matter if you have antivirus software or not – you can recover everything. If all of your files are backed up when disaster strikes, then you can get it all back. Even if you have both your computer software backed up (like Windows or Mac operating system) and your data, who really wants to have to do all the recovery work when an antivirus program might have neutralized the virus threat before it took hold.

Besides antivirus software, there are some thing you can do to keep your computer safe:

  • only go to sites that you know are trusted
  • when receiving email attachments, don’t open them unless you both know who it is from and you are expecting something to be sent
  • only install trusted software on your computer

virus detected computer

Even with doing the above mentioned items, you might still get a virus or some type of malware if a known site gets or even a friend gets hacked. I will have more to say in a future post about what to look for in antivirus software but if you are looking for a quick recommendation to either

  • keep your computer protected
  • neutralize malware or a virus that has infected your computer

I recommend checking out Malwarebytes

A few years ago when I was searching for software to clean up some malware on my computer, I tested a few different programs. What I liked about Malwarebytes is that it offered the full program functionality for free. This means that you can have it scan your computer to not only find malware and viruses but also it will clean things up. When it comes time to recommend software to put on my family and clients’ computers, I tell them to pay for the yearly fee to get the full version.

The full version gets you real time malware and virus scanning. What is the difference? Real time means it catches viruses as they try to infect your computer. Earlier I mentioned that you should be vigilant in what websites you visit. When you have Malwarebytes installed and you reach an infected website, it catches the problem before you even know it. Think of it like a personal security guard always waiting to protect you right on your computer!

Check out the link below to see the options for purchasing a license for Malwarebytes. I highly recommend running the free 2 week trial first and a full scan of your computer.


Malwarebytes for Home | Anti-Malware Premium | Free Trial Download

Do you have another program that you prefer to finding and catching viruses? Let me know in the comments.

 

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