Bertel
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Posts posted by Bertel
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7 minutes ago, Dan964 said:
Re the Firefox issue, I have seen stalls and have come to the opinion that its related to the Firefox recently activated DNS over HTTPS. My 2 cents FWIW.
Dan
Easy to find out: Disable DoH, and see whether the problem goes away.
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14 hours ago, orubio said:
Thank you everyone for the feedback.
I agree we could have done much better at letting our users know of the issue they may encounter with Windows latest update (2004)
We did make an announcement on our support site, but agree it could have been done much sooner:I believe messaging through the application itself would have made a bigger impact in regard to notifying everyone of the issue, even if not affected by it.
Fixing this issue is our top priority, and we are much closer.
We always try to reproduce issues on the field in house, at times it may require help from users open to troubleshooting with us.At times we can identify quickly if the conflict is with us or with Windows, in this case it has been a bigger challenge.
I can understand how frustrating it would be for users to experience this issue and think something is severely wrong with their system. Not everyone knows of our forums to have learned about the issue.
I will be taking this feedback to our product management to come up with a better solution when it comes to notifying our users of issues such as this one.
Once the fix is released, we will make it widely known.
Thank you for your timeNow that there is some kind of a (very welcome) come-to-Jesus movement, why are customers still subjected to BS like this:
On 7/12/2020 at 5:06 AM, Porthos said:One it is a handful of computers out of the millions of users.
Why are customers with problems marginalized by the on-line team, and told that they are an insignificant minority, the oft-repeated "4 out of 400?" Why are posts deleted when they raise problems? Why do admins invent non-existent forum rules to get rid of inconvenient messages?
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I know it's not much money, but just as a principle (and to make it known throughout the organization) I'd ask my money back.
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59 minutes ago, The-ArtfulDodger said:
I don’t think it’s fair to ask us to monitor your forum. You should make an announcement, through the app if necessary, if you don’t have e-mail lists. Failing that, e-mail the users you do have contact information for.
Asking to monitor the forum is not just unfair, it is preposterous, and just one of the many nonsensical recommendations handed out here.
- Most users do not know that this forum exists.
- Most users are unaware that Malwarebytes is what causes their problems. They will blame Microsoft, their computer, a virus they might have caught
- Not knowing that Malwarebytes is the cause, they will not look for this forum.
- Only very knowledgeable users will trace the problem to Malwarebytes, and then it is too late.
Again, it is the duty of an ethical company to inform its users that they might be in trouble. The ongoing refusal in this forum speaks volumes
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1 minute ago, Bertel said:
... Windows slowed down after a number of running. Malwarebytes did cost me a week of pure horror when Windows became absolutely unusable ...
*number of hours running.
Can't even put an edit function in their forum
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On 7/12/2020 at 4:22 AM, Dan964 said:
Why didn't users get an email warning of this Win 10 issue so we didn't have to try 'pull our hair out' trying to figure out what was going on?
You are absolutely right, @Dan964. I have seen exactly the same problems as you. Malwarebytes did cost me more than a year of ongoing grief when Windows slowed down after a number of running. Malwarebytes did cost me a week of pure horror when Windows became absolutely unusable to a degree that I couldn’t launch any programs, I couldn’t even kill Malwarebytes. After reporting it here, I had to endure abuse by its unemployed posse, even received outright threats by alleged users. Sundry posts of mine have been deleted.
Malwarebytes finally acknowledged the problem, and that it has no solution. All the while, the unemployed posse still repeats the “it works on my machine” trope, and that 400 machines can’t be wrong.
The way it stands, the impact of Malwarebytes on a machine upgraded to 2004 can be much worse than that of a virus Malwarebytes alleges to protect us from. You are absolutely right that Malwarebytes has the OBLIGATION to warn its 240 million users (as of 2014) that they might run into problems when updating to 2004. If I would have received such a mail, I would have been spared a week of horror, and Malwarebytes would have risen in my esteem.
Instead, Malwarebyte’s inaction and its ongoing attempts to wipe its problems under the carpet, along with the inexcusable behavior of its on-line team, put the company at the very bottom of my esteem scale. The fact that Malwarebytes left spyware hidden in temp directories on my machine after an allegedly complete uninstall doesn’t even surprise me anymore.
Malwarebytes used to be a great product by an honest company. No more.
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8 minutes ago, TempLost said:
And I thought one of the benefits of a divorce was to put all the bitterness behind you so you could get on with your life? Evidently not..........
Exactly what I thought. Until I found out that the divorce was not as final as I was made to believe, and that there were monitoring tools left all over the house..
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7 minutes ago, KenW said:
GIVE UP AND GET LOST. If you think you are hidden on the internet, you are VERY wrong. EVERYONE CAN BE FOUND.
O.K., so now I am told that they know where I live? What a charming community.
Many here, especially KenW, hide behind a handle. I post under my full name, and I indeed can easily be found. Come and get me. Or are you making these threats only to give the admin reason to close the thread and make it go away?
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All I can tell you is that the support tool downloads frst64.exe onto my computer without asking, and stores it as FRSTEnglish.exe in my Downloads folder, again without asking. FRSTEnglish.exe supposedly requires user Access Control, but I never was asked to give UAC consent to FRSTEnglish.exe. Apparently, FRSTEnglish inherits consent from the support tool, which of course will receive consent from the user.
During execution, there are at least two open, and encrypted connections with AWS nodes. No permission is expressly asked, or given, to exchange data with an anonymous entity. No permission is given to log my keystrokes.
When everything is done, copies of FRSTEnglish.exe are left in various corners of my computer.
I don’t care whether FRST should be considered a White Hat or a Black Hat tool. I did not give permission for it to be put on and left on my machine.
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@David H. Lipman, when you are done spewing invective and making accusations of criminal activity, why don’t you start thinking. Don’t you think that it is pretty strange that a developer of security software needs a 3rd party tool to clean up an their install, especially a 3rd party tool of ill repute, one that can monitor and emulate my keystrokes and exfil any data it feels like?
Sure, FRST requires UAC, but permission is given to uninstall the damned app, not to act as a keylogger, and not to send home whatever data it wants.
I don’t mind a strong whitehat tool, but I want to be the one to put it on my computer, and I want to be the one to execute it. I am taking a very dim view when someone else does it without asking for my permission. I am taking an exceptionally dim view when keys are logged and data are phoned home while an app claims it’s cleaning my computer.
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13 minutes ago, David H. Lipman said:
You act just like a Tech Support scammer that uses Social Engineering to con some victim into thinking there is something wrong with their PC and gets them to allow the Tech Support scammer to remote-in the victim's PC. Once there they perform a series of actions that are used to persuade the victim that they are infected or that their computer is fouled up and requires the victim to pay for some service and for a service contract. The victim is presented information that they can't interpret but the narrative is used to lend credulity to victim of the Tech Support scammer's fraud narrative.
Sure, why don't you make it complete and claim that I have a heavy Indian accent, and an office in Bengaluru? Why don't you use the "support tool" yourself, do a complete and thorough uninstall, search your machine for FRST* and MBW*, and then come back to me?
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I suggest manually deleting all Tmp and Temp directories after the uninstall as part of a more thorough Malwarebyte eradication
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In addition to the above, the helpful uninstaller left bunches of mwb3b3a.tmp directories on my machine, each containing
Malwarebytes EULA.rtf
mbcheck.dll
mbchkrpt.dll
mbclean.dll
mbcut.dll
mbfix_clr.dll
mbgrab.dll
mbrpt.dll
mbst-fix-results.txt
mb-support.exe
mb-support.exe.Config
mb-support-log.txt
MWB.DefaultStyle.dll.... and more
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After I announced my divorce from Malwarebytes, Malwarebytes made the divorce official by offering, and promptly submitting refunds for my two Malwarebytes licenses. To finish-up on my side, I used the downloadable support tool that alleges to remove all traces.
Even after uninstalling Malwarebytes, and after using the support tool, there still were many Malwarebytes entries in my registry.
What’s worse, the tool automatically, and without asking, downloaded FRSTEnglish.exe and left it in more than 20 locations of my computer, even after Malwarebytes was removed, and after the support tool was closed.
FRSTenglish.exe has earned a very dubious reputation on the Internet. JoesSandBox says FRSTEnglish.exe "has functionality to log and monitor keystrokes," and that it can exfiltrate encrypted data via HTTPS. A reputable developer of security solutions should stay away from such dubious apps, and definitely should not leave them all over a customer’s computer after the app has been uninstalled.
Or was it that even after the divorce, Malwarebytes just can’t let go?
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2 hours ago, Syurba said:
In my case I spend tens of hours trying to debug the issue, suffered through reinstalling software from fresh windows reinstalls, swapping out hardware, and not to mention finding the time to do all that during WFH and what am I greeted with? "Devs are working on fixing it" while the issue has been going on for months with no meaningful update report, and then when it does get fixed I get absolutely no explanation about what happened. Why did I have to waste tens of hours trying to resolve this with absolutely no explanation as to what happened? How can I have confidence in Malwarebytes that it won't happen again when this is how you treat a customer who spends so much time trying to solve an issue caused by your product? How can I trust them anymore? I just can't.
This about sums it up. I also have lost all confidence. If a dev-team working in three timezones has been unable for the last FOUR years to fix the "Real-time protection turned off" problem, which sounds like a rather trivial persistence issue, how should I believe that they can fix the Windows 2004 problem? Especially when it looks like the same problem has been there all along, albeit less pronounced? Today, I have canceled automatic payment on my two Malwarebytes licenses.
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@Advancedsetup, I don’t think you appreciate the gravity of the situation.
As previously mentioned, users will update to Windows 2004, experience huge problems, and blame Microsoft, or their computer, because they do not know that Malwarebytes is the cause. I’m so old, and have been around computers so long, that I once handed Bill Gates $300 for a roll of punched tape with a BASIC interpreter on it. Nevertheless, I performed, as documented above, three upgrades and removals of Windows 2004, along with a completely new install of Windows until I noticed by elimination that Malwarebytes was the culprit. You should assume that uncounted numbers of Windows 2004 users live in silent misery, unaware that your product is the cause.
You should immediately, and automatically, recall the version causing problems, or, at the very least put up a message to 2004 users that they might encounter problems. Furthermore, turning off a feature people paid for is not an acceptable solution, especially because most users will not realize that it is Malwarebytes that is causing their problems.
That said, there are older, some very old, unaddressed problems.
- I had the “Real-Time Protection turned off” problem just a few days ago, before I yanked Malwarebytes. This was with the latest updates, and with all mitigations recommended in this forum applied. This is a dangerous problem because it leaves users thinking that after clicking “Turn on” they are protected, while in fact they are not.
- In the past, and until last Sunday, I encountered a host of unexplainable Windows problems, such as sudden slowdowns after hours of use, freezing apps, stuttering video, Internet down, and occasional crashes. At the same time, memory usage was low (I have 128G anyway), and no overly CPU-greedy process showed up in Task Manager. A few completely new installs of Windows did not solve the problem. I learned to live with the problems like living with a sick relative, and to re-boot after a few hours. That was with Windows builds < 2004, and in two separate boxes, one Intel, one AMD.
Ever since Malwarebytes was removed last Sunday, these problems are GONE.
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18 minutes ago, Porthos said:
The Ransomware Protection component is the least proactive in Malwarebytes because it relies entirely on active application behavior in memory to make detections, meaning your system would first need to actually be infected by a live ransomware threat for Ransomware Protection to detect anything. This is extremely unlikely since you still have the other more proactive components active which should prevent any infection from infiltrating your system in the first place, including ransomware.
@porthos, you are not doing Malwarebytes a big favor with your combative and arrogant stance.
“It works on my machine” is the deadly sin of tech support, and it will land you in hell.
Whoever does the marketing for Malwarebytes, touting Ransomware Protection as using “proprietary tech to create a powerful defense against malware that locks down your PC and takes your files and photos hostage,” will explode when reading on Malwarebyte’s own support forum that the proprietary tech “is the least proactive,” and that the recommendation is to switch it off altogether.
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10 minutes ago, Porthos said:
Each computer is different. Not all users have the same issues as you do.
You need to start reading. As I said, the last install was a completely virgin install. I used the very latest MediaCreationTool2004, and installed on a reformatted NVME drive. I added Microsoft Office and Adobe CC. There are thousands, if not millions of similar machines out there.
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@Porthos, before you continue patronizing me, allow me to send you a picture of my (messy) desk. Ever since I hand-soldered an Altair S100 back in 1975, I have been into and around computers, hopefully for longer than you have been alive. I have been a Windows developer (hardware and software) long before Windows 3.1 arrived. Yes, I am that old.
There is no need to lecture me how Windows updates work. As someone who services computers for “real people” you should know how updates work for “real people.” Updates arrive, the user will accept them, and a re-boot later, the updates are on the machine. Also, the common user would have no reason to deny the Windows 2004 update. With Malwarebytes on the machine, he or she will become aware of a slowdown only after the update, and the user will in all likelihood not suspect Malwarebytes as causing the problem anyway. If you ask your customers whether they have Windows 2004 on their machine, most will likely answer “no, my computer is much newer than that.”
@Maurice Naggar, there likewise is no need to lecture me on the need for timely backups. My Windows machine (center) has twice-daily backups made by Acronis, a product I can heartily recommend. On top of it, the Windows machine AND the backups are saved by a Linux server (left) to its own RAID, with restorable versions going back for months. Windows doesn’t see the server, and the server only has read access to Windows. The server RAID then is mirrored to an off-site server (not pictured) via fiber line. Furthermore, what you seem to ignore is that backups are there to protect the user from ransomware, errant software, drive failures, fires, and thunderstorms. The idea of a backup definitely is not to protect the user from Malwarebytes.
I can understand that the first reflex of an online support person would be to treat a problem like it was posted by a complete noob and idiot, that the second reflex is to keep the user busy filing reports, and that the third is to promise that the next awesome update will solve all problems. You should suppress these urges. You are the face of the company, whether you actually work for them, or not. Your job is to classify problems, to see patterns, and to raise internal hell when problems are not fixed. Internally, you are the voice of the customer, and you should raise that voice. Did you?
Sadly, I have reason to doubt that. Let’s use an example that can be illustrated easier than the dreaded 2004 Windows collapse. Last Sunday, when I booted up the Windows machine for the last time before I made a completely new install, I was greeted by this by now very familiar message:
Now, what would the average user do? Of course, the user would click on the “Turn On,” and would go on his or her merry way, thinking that by now, real-time protection is on. But it won’t be on.
Would the user open Malwarebytes, he or she would see that Ransomware Protection is not on. Of course, the user would turn it on after that. What will happen next?
Noting would happen. That little indicator next to “Ransomware Protection” would turn, and, turn, and turn, and no Ransomware Protection would turn on. The user would be wide open to ransomware attacks, and a big chunk of the $40 that were paid for Malwarebytes were for naught. But maybe the user was lucky: Turning off anti-ransomware appears to be the prime “solution” to the dreaded Windows 2004 coronary anyway.
Of course, the first reflex of an online support person would be to tell me: “Make sure you have the latest version.” Let’s see.
These are the versions that were installed as of last Sunday. They were updated at 9:04 in the morning. If they are not the very latest, not my fault.
As you can see, Malwarebytes was set to automatic updates. And any manual updating should be superfluous.
If we look back at that past years, we will see that the updates were mostly feel-good snakeoil, at least as far as the errant real-time protection goes.
Going back in time, we will see that the problem I saw as late as last Sunday (I saved the NVME drive Windows is installed on) appears to be as old as anti-ransomware itself, and years later, it remains unaddressed, countless promises notwithstanding.
With a very cursory Google search, I found mentions of the suddenly disabled real-time protection way back in early 2016. The answer basically was radio silence for a year. Finally in September 2017, you, @Porthos recommended “installing the latest 3.2.2.202”
Well, it did not solve the problem. A year later, the forum was filled with the same complaints.
Help had (allegedly) arrived on August 30, 2018, when, with great fanfare, a new version was announced that would fix the nasty problem.
Well, it did not solve the problem. By the end of 2018, the problems were still there.
Summer of 2019 arrived, and real-time protection still did not turn on.
By now, you can guess what happened in December 2018.
Can you guess what happened in early 2020? You guessed it! “Real-Time Protection turned off and won't switch back on” was back on the forum.
By now, the problem is more than four years old, and as of last Sunday morning, is was still alive. “Malwarebytes real-time protection turned off” has turned into a big hit on Google, the search returned 249,000 results for me.
Looking at Malwarebyte’s dismal record of addressing the rather simple problem of preserving the state of a setting, one can imagine how stumped Malwarebytes is by the 2004 disaster that may very well break the company’s neck, or turn into a class action lawsuit.
Let me repeat myself: My long love for Malwarebytes has ended. I feel abused, and cheated. And you, gentlemen, should be ashamed of enabling and protecting the cheater.
Malwarebytes is off my machine, which now for the first time in a long while feels zippy and responsive. Virus-checking and sundry other functions are performed by Zonealarm. Serious ransomware protection is being performed by Acronis, and if all hell breaks loose, I have versioned backups going many months back.
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6 minutes ago, rcferris said:
I have just updated MWB to Version 4.1.273; Update package Version 1.0.2675 and Component Version 1.0.976.
I have had same problems described above with the Win10 2004 update, and had to uninstall. I now have all updates turned off.
My question for this forum is whether anyone else has the MWB updates I noted above, and the Win10 2004 update, and if so, are they playing nice together?
I ask this because I don't want to to go thru uninstalling the Win10 update again.
Thanks
See my next post. On Sunday, I was at Malwarebytes version 4.1..2.73 Update package version 1.0.26421 and Component package version 1.0.976. It failed. When It failed again after a completely new and virgin install of Windows, Malwarebytes was banned from my computer.
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I have read everything, including the advice to put off upgrading to Windows 2004. This advice won’t work for most users, because for them, the upgrade is automatic, and out of their control. Most users won’t know that it was Malwarebytes that causes their problems. Most users don’t know that this message board exists, and when they find out, it is too late. For most users, the computer just “doesn’t work anymore.” It is up to Malwarebytes to either make its products work with Windows (there is ample time, developers receive beta and pre-releases,) or to disable Malwarebytes with a message when Windows 2004 is detected. You are causing your paying customers days of grief at the minimum, and thousands of $ at the maximum, because when the problems start, many users just go out and buy a new computer. And then, the problem will be back once they put Malwarebytes back on.
Also, you may not have read everything in my post. There appear to be unaddressed problems from long before Windows 2004. The slowdowns were there, just not as bad as now. The issues with settings that won’t turn on were there for at least 3 years, and I had them as late as last week.
This matter can’t be handled by tech support, it needs to be addressed by top management, now.
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33 minutes ago, Firefox said:
Hello and Welcome @Bertel
The edit feature is disabled due to spam abuse, sorry.
Many forums live happily with the edit function enabled by:
- Allowing the edit only to the OP
- Shutting off the edit after a certain time-frame, such as 5 minutes
Fingers slip occasionally
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Sorry for the typo in the headline. Unintended. No swipe at Apple. Forum needs an edit function.
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I loved Malwarebytes. It was a marriage made in computer heaven. It lived in perfect harmony with other antivirus apps like Zonealarm. It never felt like it had any impact on performance. It protected me from nefarious websites before they could even attempt to drop malware on my computer. Its scans worked quietly in the background. False positives were scant, and easily rectified. I had paid Malwarebytes on computer and smartphone. Now I loathe Malwarebytes, because it ruined my life.
Late May, Microsoft put Windows 2004 on my machine. Everything went haywire immediateky. The machine nearly choked. Of course, I blamed it on Microsoft, and reverted the update. After 2 weeks, the update dropped again, and it again brought the machine to its knees. I had a rather dated Intel 6700K, and I thought it’s time to retire the old boy. Spent $10K for a new server with a Threadripper 3970x, and turned the “old” 16 core Threadripper 2950x with 128G memory into my daily driver Windows machine. Ran like a banshee, except for some slowdowns at the end of the day. Tried the 2004 update. Near-death experience again. Did a complete new install (and you know how much work that can be.) Ran really well, until, 2 days later, it suffered from yet another coronary.
I started to selectively disable apps and services. Finally disabled Malwarebytes, and the problems immediately went away. This is when I found this site, and many others who had the same problem. I followed all the tips that amounted to performing fresh installs of the next update that would work, and if that won’t work, disable features you paid for, like ransomware protection. They never solved the problem. I felt like teleported back to the dark old days of Windows 3.1, when the standard tech-support answer was “reinstall Windows.”
Sometimes, the machine was bogged-down right after booting. Sometimes, it ran for a few hours, then the Internet would first slow down (I’m on a 2gbit fiber line that feels like talking to the server next door – when it works) then the machine would become unusable altogether. A reboot would fix it …. For a while.
Once I found out that Malwarebytes was the culprit, I immediately turned off Malwarebytes when the machine slowed down – until turning off Malwarebytes was no longer possible. A few times, the 16core/32 thread machine became so slow that Malwarebytes itself would no longer react to a shutdown command. Its window turned white, and it played dead. The only escape was via the reset button.
Yesterday, new problems started. AFTER successful login, Windows would report problems with the logon info. Twice after that, ALL personalization info was gone, including the complete desktop, all email accounts in Outlook, and sundry other info. Basically, Windows was thrown back to a state after a new install. Malwarebytes robbed me of a day of my life spent reinstalling and updating everything.
Things got so bad that the Malwarebytes support tool, fired-up to document the harm done by the app, simply sat there, and forever twirled its "Run FIRST" indicator. It never finished or put any logs onto the desktop as promised. I finally had to stop it. During a second run of the support tool, I noticed a "FIRST English" icon, indicating a "script stopped." I unstopped the script, and finally, a "mbst-grab-results.zip" was put on the desktop. If anyone wants it, it’s available.
I finally lost all trust and belief in Malwarebytes, and removed it from, the Windows machine.
Reading this site, I also noticed what many people notice after a divorce, namely that I must have suffered for far longer than I realized. About a year ago, Malwarebytes started to come up with the message that ransomware protection was turned off. I turned it back on. Or so I thought. Much later, I finally realized that it simply sat there, twirling its indicator signaling an imminent turn-on, and it never would turn-on. Countless Malwarebytes owners were led to believe that they were protected from Ransomware while in fact, they were wide open. I followed well-meant advice that said I should disable false positive lockout. I found a better solution. I stopped Malwarebytes, restarted it, then set the protections to ON. After that, they would stay ON until the next re-boot. Sometimes the settings would survive a few re-boots, most often, they did not. Even in its failures, Malwarebytes continued to be erratic, and Malwarebyte maintenance ate more and more of my active time. Looking at this forum, I notice that these problems were reported three years ago, were promised to be fixed, and I had them as late as last week.
During the research, it also dawned on me that I had suffered from sudden Windows slowdowns for a much longer than I realized. Of course, I blamed them on an older CPU, a bad Windows install, or a virus I might have caught. I never imagined that Malwarebytes, an app that should protect me from evil, would be the culprit. The slowdowns started long before Windows 2004, but were never as pronounced, so they were ignored, or “fixed” with a re-boot.
The latest Malwarebytes update was applied this morning. All was well. Until a few hours later, the slowdowns started again. We all reach a point in life when enough is enough
Sadly, I have to divorce myself from formerly beloved Malwarebytes.
Had to remove Malwarebytes due to crashing Win10
in Malwarebytes for Windows Support Forum
Posted
I did not write that