Hi folks,
As a long-time premium user, I've been sold on MBAM for the better part of a decade, in part because it "just worked", didn't bother me too much, and didn't seem to cause the slowdowns many other packages caused. My experiences with MBAM 3.0 on my home machine (as distinct from older PCs, where it does not always play as nice) have been pretty much along the same lines, but there are a few things about MBAM 3.0 that I believe could be improved. In particular:
With respect to the UI, as an advanced user, I really like to be able to see what my software is doing. When I tell MBAM 3.0 to update, however, the only thing I see is the update icon on the dash board blinking - very subtle - and a very base one-line description of what is going on after "Updates:". I am sure this is by design / to make things look nice and clean, and for many users it'll be just fine. What I would suggest, nevertheless, would be to have two modes or skins available for MBAM 3.0 (basic and advance) or maybe an open to increase the level of detail being reported, so that folks like myself can still see exactly what is going on. This is always useful for troubleshooting as well, since it enables us to see where things go wrong. The same goes for options. A good example of this sort of thing done right is ClassicShell, where there is a "Show all settings" tick box that provides full access for those who want it. The Dell Print Manager that comes with office-grade networked dell printers has a Basic / Advanced view toggle as well, and ImbBurn's (optional, though I never close it) log window is another nice example of this.
One thing that is indeed driving me nuts is the habit of MBAM 3.0 to tell me that not all realtime protections are enabled when the issue is that I have disabled scheduled scans. There is a good reason for this; MBAM 3.0 defaults to a "Threat Scan", i.e. a full scan, which can be both time consuming and resource intensive, and the scheduler is not smart enough to figure out when I am attempting to use my PC and it is degrading my user experience as a consequence, to reschedule automatically when the PC is not in use, to offer an option to postpone the scan when it's about to start (Macrium Reflect does this for automated backups, Windows Update used to do this back in the day as well when wanting to reboot - handy). Of course I can change this to a Hyper Scan and speed things up substantially, but this is much less comprehensive; in short, I like the idea of a regular Threat Scan but I want more (and smarter) control over when it happens. A couple of suggestions here, therefore: At an absolute minimum, there should be an easy way to tell the software to stop harassing me about the lack of a scheduled scan, or to treat this as if not all realtime protection layers were enabled (that's not realtime protection, so the notification gets me consistently worried for no reason). An ignore / suppress notifications option (as Windows has had for a long time as far as things like backups and maintenance are concerned) is essential here. Really, we should have complete control over what sorts of notifications we get, when and how (Avast! AV gives more control over this, for example, not to mention any number of NAS management systems) - but again, this may fall into the need for a basic / advanced split as far as options are concerned (noted above). Beyond that, the scan scheduler should provide the user with a much richer palette of scheduling options than it currently does - with an emphasis on options that enable the scheduler to check and see if the computer is in use or not, to automatically pause / postpone / reschedule the scan if the computer is being used or starts being used while the scan is in progress, and the ability to randomize scan timing and wake the computer from sleep in order to perform scans. Currently, all we have is "Recover if missed by"; with "Premium" software I would normally expect a bit more.
Thanks in advance to the developers who have created this essential piece of software; I hope the above is helpful. Best wishes,
DS
