Question about Defender and Malwarebytes...

Hi. My security software is as follows:

avast! Antivirus 4.8 Home Edition

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.40

Spybot Search & Destroy 1.6.2

SUPERAntispyware Free Edition 3.9.1008

Ad-Aware Free Anniversary Edition

Windows Defender

I regularly run scans with each of them. What I find strange is that Windows Defender and Malwarebytes never find anything. I mean NEVER. Often when I run one of the other programs they'll locate cookies and other potentially unwanted programs but Defender and Malwarebytes never turn up anything, even when I run them first.

Are these programs ineffective or are they merely less sensitive than the others?

Thanks.

cadre

 

malwarebytes is very good program,from my own experience is top notch antimalware,one of the best in the market check in their forum they are very active malware hunters

 

MalwareNET

Just to add that quite a few rogue apps such as System Security and Internet Antivirus Pro have many morphed installers with new morphs being constantly released.

When working on other machines MBAM is the first app I run and has helped me on many occassions in getting rid of rogues which seem to be the most common infection I encounter.

And usually follow up with Avira, Dr Web Cureit and SAS.

 

Windows Defender's real-time scanner is excellent (manual scanner is, IMO, marginal.) And MBAM is also an excellent program. So are SAS and Avast.

However, IMO, Spybot and Ad-Aware are nearly worthless. If you have a serious infection, they are no longer capable of cleaning things up...

 

The real benefit of MBAM is when a system has been infected,the fact that the scans you run pick up nothing says more about your personal policy of computer usage than any shortcomings in the program.

As for Spybot I agree it's not really powerful enough as a frontline utility nowadays but I find it often removes a few leftovers when the other tools have cleaned out the main malware,so it does still have some benefit IMO.

 

Malwarebytes does not now nor will it ever detect cookies , our users made it VERY clear that they have no desire to see this addition . The same goes for usage tracks , traces like these are handled quite well by multiple tools already .