I started using the free version of Malwarebytes some years ago when my anti-virus program didn’t seem to be catching everything. I would run a scan with MWB every now and then and often it would pick up a couple of problems and delete them.

They kept telling me how much more the premium version would do for me, so I finally bit a little over a year ago. It quietly worked away in the background, causing me no trouble and hopefully doing me some good. I didn’t really know what it was doing, but I felt just a little more secure knowing it was there.

Until last Saturday, January 27. I started my computer and everything was extremely sluggish. Programs were slow to load and didn’t want to work. I rebooted the computer a half dozen times and the problem only seemed to get worse. Sometimes the monitor stayed black, sometimes the cursor was oncoperative. I finally shut the computer down and made plans to take it to the computer hospital today.

Then I heard from a friend that the problem was a botched Malwarebytes update. I booted the computer up yesterday afternoon and everything returned to normal. Alls well that ends well, right?

Wrong. My confidence in Malwarebytes has dropped to near zero. You see, it is one thing to find and fix a technical error, but the problem is not resolved until you can convince your customers that you know why the problem occurred and have taken steps that will ensure it does not happen again.

Does Malwarebytes even know that they are dealing with people? Students who have reports and projects with a deadline, business people with deadlines to meet, writers with deadlines to meet, other people who were counting on using their computers to communicate with others or complete some project? I am a bookkeeper with month end deadlines for governement reports for my clients. I was counting on Saturday being a big day to get a lot of that done. Instead I had to turn my attention to tasks that didn’t require a computer, and weren’t nearly as urgent.

Meanwhile, all that we have heard from Malwarebytes is an online posting that the problem has been fixed. There is a lack of comprehension here. One technical glitch has been fixed. The real problem has not. Why should I be paying for a program that will put my computer out of service? That question has not been answered.

Can somebody reccommend a dependable alternative?