Malwarebytes Premium Product Review

Malwarebytes Premium has so many advanced protection layers that the company deems it an antivirus replacement. However, we still advise using it in conjunction with a dedicated antivirus utility.

Several years ago, Malwarebytes was only useful as a scanning and cleaning tool for getting rid of malware. Back then, it had to be used in conjunction with another antivirus to ensure complete protection. This is still true for the free version; it’s a useful tool, but it’s only really good when used together with an active scanning antivirus program. The free version does not offer enough protection on its own.

That said, nowadays, the premium version of Malwarebytes is 100% capable of being used as a standalone antivirus, with real-time protection against all malware threats.

We explain how – the multi-vector protection module provides static and dynamic detection methods across the attack chain. The remediation module provides immediate response in case of infection, and returns the endpoint to a healthy state. The management console provides a dashboard that displays threats, endpoint status, recent activity and reports. MalwareBytes also offers application hardening, application behavior, web protection, exploit mitigation, ransomware mitigation, payload analysis and policy management features within a suite.

It is compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. Support is available via email, online chat and over the phone. Other help options include remote support, online community, knowledge base, videos, user guides and FAQs.

Malwarebytes has evolved from a dedicated malware scanner to a fully-functioning antivirus with a full range of powerful features.

Why Choose Malwarebytes Premium 2020?

Malwarebytes is a Californian company which has been developing malware-hunting products for more than 15 years.

Its latest product, Malwarebytes Premium 2020, claims to be smarter than the traditional antivirus, thanks to layers of technology such as anomaly detection, behavior matching and application hardening.

New features in this release are mostly under the hood, with more rapid publishing of threat definitions, enhanced zero-hour detection and a brand new Katana engine using improved behavior monitoring techniques to block the very latest dangers. Oh, and the company claims Malwarebytes 4 is faster, and more lightweight, too.

There’s also a very visible change in the completely redesigned interface, which has been optimized for simplicity but is also able to provide more information.

Installing Malwarebytes gets you a 14-day trial of the Premium version with full real-time protection. After that, it falls back to a free edition with on-demand malware, spyware and rootkit detection only.

Malwarebytes Premium is priced at $40 for a single computer, (Windows, Mac, Android Chrome OS), for a one-year license, or $60 to cover three computers. Extending this to two years gets you a 25% discount on the second year, cutting costs to $70 for a single computer, $105 for three.

That’s very similar pricing to other big antivirus names, although they’ll often also give you a worthwhile discount on the first year. Kaspersky and Bitdefender’s baseline antivirus packages start at around $25 to cover three devices for a year, for instance, although they rise to the same $60 a year on renewal.

Malwarebytes installs quickly and easily. We were offered the chance to have a 14-day trial of Malwarebytes Premium, and although this requires handing over an email address, there were no other hassles of any kind

Moving forward, checking the Malwarebytes installation folders showed a relatively lightweight package at around 210MB of files. Some antivirus tools require three to five times as much space, more when you factor in virus definitions.

Malwarebytes also provides simple URL filtering, detecting and blocking any attempts to access malicious links. Results were only average in our tests, but even that’s enough to be useful, and it’s a worthwhile addition to the package.

The Settings dialog is mostly about toggling features on and off, (updates, notifications, web filtering, malware protection and so on), but you do get some fine-tuned control over Malwarebytes’ exploit protection, where the packages uses multiple techniques to protect against zero-day attacks for common applications and application types.

Settings consist of six tabs: “application,” “protection,” “scan schedule,” “exclusions,” “account details” and “about.” The first two include a button in the upper right corner to restore the default settings. That is a handy tool that some antiviruses hide or tuck into a hard-to-find spot. We like that it is so readily available.

Malwarebytes uploads samples of suspicious software from its users’ systems to its own servers for analysis. This data is used to create updates for the company’s 30 million users. You can opt out of this data collection without diminishing your protection.

Malwarebytes examines your system’s master and volume boot records with a rootkit scanner to spot deeply buried malware and defends against fileless-malware attacks to catch exploits before they can do any serious damage.

With the Premium For Home option, you’re able to mix and match Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, which is only available on the App Store, and Chrome OS. That is a nice touch for those who aren’t burdened by brand name loyalty.

The business versions have advanced features, including application hardening, exploit mitigation, payload analysis, anomaly detection, machine learning, asset management and more. Pricing starts at $119.97 for the basic business package, then it’s customized after that based on your requirements and number of devices to be protected.

Malwarebytes is definitely user-friendly, its download and installation is quick and easy. Plus, Malwarebytes’ website includes simple instructions that give you a head’s up on what to do without insulting your intelligence, although, if you ask us, the entire process is so intuitive, it’s quite unlikely you’ll be needing the additional instructions.

Once installed, the initial scan only took three minutes and 46 seconds to check 173,193 objects on the online antivirus test machines. Other antivirus packages tested on the same test machine took over an hour. That said, its speed came at the expense of 100 percent CPU utilization during the scan. It dipped once to around 75 percent, then went right back up.

At the test, we launched another application during the scan and Malwarebytes gave up the CPU time to let it run normally, demonstrating that it is not a resource hog. It is willing to share. This gives you the best of both worlds: a fast scan when it is running alone, plus the security of knowing it won’t slow down other applications if they are running simultaneously.

The report generated after each scan is simple and easy to read. It has all the information you need on two tabs. The first is a one-page summary. The advanced tab shows you how many objects were scanned, whether it was manual or scheduled, elapsed time and scan options. An export button lets you copy the report to the clipboard or a text file for future reference.

Quarantined files, such as potentially unwanted programs, are held harmless, waiting for you to restore them or delete them if they are, in fact, unwanted. The settings let you configure what to do with quarantined files.

A two-step exclusion process gives you the options to exclude particular websites, applications, files or previously-detected exploits from being detected in future scans. Again, the interface is quick and intuitive.