Amaroq_Starwind

That seems a bit overkill, seeing as some people rely on advertisement revenue as their primary source of income. There are a few extensions which are themselves extensions for uBlock Origin. One of them allows you to Whitelist individual YouTube channels for displaying advertisements (I think it's just called YouTube Channel Whitelist), and another disarms anti-adblock content locks, called Nano Defender. They both require some setup though. On Google Chrome, there's also an extension called Fair AdBlocker, which limits the maximum number of ads which can be displayed on a webpage and will replace the advertisements with ones that are significantly less-tailored and are also verified to not contain anything malicious. However, there is nothing like that for Firefox, and it is also still susceptible to Anti-Adblocks. Plus, MalwareBytes' own adblocking does conflict with it a little. I prefer using Fair AdBlocker because it allows people to still gain ad revenue, and I really wish that it was available for Firefox while being made uBlock Origin compatible. Maybe in the future, there will be a MalwareBytes partnership?

Yeah. Last time I tried using the hpHosts version of the HOSTS file, I actually completely lost internet access. If your HOSTS file is too big, it disables the DNS service, and in Windows 10, editing the HOSTS file at all can cause all sorts of problems that didn't occur in previous versions of Windows.

I can't believe that the NSA would just open-source one of their tools.

No problem! One last bit of feedback, I think the script should be bundled with the MalwareBytes Support Tool and with MBTS.

Welp. I was supposed to run DISM before SFC /SCANNOW, and I was also supposed to update DISM. Additionally, I was supposed to reset the WMI. The problem seems to be fixed now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next-generation_firewall So I did a bit of reading. Turns out that the WFP has actually had a few vulnerabilities in the past, and in general, most existing software firewalls aren't 100% effective anymore. Much like how MalwareBytes uses a lot of next-generation anti-malware technology, there is a growing need for next-generation firewalls. Maybe the acquisition of Binisoft will result in significant improvements to network security as time goes on.

I have the consumer version of MalwareBytes, and noticed that in addition to both the MBEndpointAgent reading as NOT_INSTALLED and the flightrecorder as NOT_INSTALLED (both of which I understand), MBAMService.CPU%..... reads as no. What's going on there?

On a system that I'm working on, the WPD FileSystem Volume Driver got corrupted (which seems to be a common occurrence on Windows 10, especially later versions), and all of the advice for fixing it seems to either involve downloading some snake-oil "this will fix all of your problems" software, or going into device manager, showing hidden devices, and uninstalling the WPD FileSystem Volume Driver and reinstalling it. However, in my case it doesn't even show up in Device Manager, even when hidden devices are shown (it is supposed to show up under Portable Devices, but it is not showing up there), and even if I could uninstall it, I have no idea how to reinstall it. Windows Update and built-in troubleshooting tools don't help me, and I can't find any reliable documentation using Google. I could try DuckDuckGo, but I have doubts that it will show me what I actually need to find. I have a feeling that the MBTS Issue Scanner won't be able to find it either... One of the symptoms this system is experiencing is that it is unable to execute files from removable storage or from certain user directories. My laptop back home is also experiencing a similar problem, and it is running the 32-bit version of Windows 10 as opposed to the 64-bit version, which this computer is running. I have an installation drive which I can try using to restore corrupted system files, but I was hoping I could get some advice from this forum as well. Neither sfc /scannow or DISM seems to help me on any of my machines either...

You never know. I have a feeling that if they really wanted to, MalwareBytes is well within their ability to employ Tor networking for a lot of things. It isn't even that uncommon for companies to use Tor browsers for security reasons, and the most well-known Tor browser is itself a fork of Firefox, which most people should already be familiar with.

Um, nevermind on that. The problem seems to have fixed itself while I was at the grocery store. Woohoo! I am now on 1.0.563 like the other beta testers.

My copy of MalwareBytes is still using Component Package 1.0.0. I tried to manually fetch application updates, but the installer didn't run after the program closed, and trying to relaunch the tray application from the Taskbar gives me a "This file is currently in use" error.

A system I recently configured for somebody else is also experiencing BSODs, and my partner is suspecting that maybe MalwareBytes is the issue there as well, based on the results of the memory dumps. However, the system does not currently have other protection software installed beyond the default Windows Defender, and right now it's failing to boot entirely due to NTOSKRNL.EXE and the BCD both being corrupted. It has to be an issue with Windows, because this system was also running Windows 10 x64 (1803 build). Currently waiting on the diagnostic results, because the installation media isn't able to repair the operating system at this time. I am with you in regards to this being super frustrating... I hope that our issues aren't related.

Actually speaking of Tor, @David H. Lipman does the MalwareBytes website use .ONION by any chance?

In general, VPNs just tend to be slow, at least in my experience. Not only does your traffic need to make additional hops, it also needs to be encrypted which increases its volume. This is why a good VPN service would ideally compress your traffic and then encrypt it, or if I were in charge of development, would allow you to only route specific traffic (on a per-port, per-application or per-destination basis) through a VPN. Tor, while seemingly incompatible with VPNs, does seem like the way to go. And yes, definitely use the Cloudflare DNS, because it is not only the quickest-resolving DNS, they also encrypt your DNS queries if you're using the Cloudflare DNS phone app. Welcome to the forum, @SlowRunner. If you have any other questions, feedback or issues, I look forward to helping you out!