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Hello,

 

On my PC, a full Malwarebytes Anti-Malware scan used to take 1 hour and 15 minutes, but it now takes 2 hours and 15 minutes.  I'm wondering if it's because I recently installed Adblock Plus in both Firefox and Internet Explorer. According to two websites, Adblock Plus employs 37,000 filters, so my guess is that having it in both Firefox and Internet Explorer makes it 74,000 filters.  Would that be the culprit for adding an hour to my full Malwarebytes Anti-Malware scans?

I have recently added the following programs to my PC:

January 7, 2014:
• Malwarebytes Anti-Rootkit
• Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit
Adblock Plus
Adblock Plus Pop-up Addon
• Webutation

January 8, 2014:
• Adobe Flash Player 11 for Internet Explorer
Adblock Plus for Internet Explorer

January 9, 2014:
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Pro license activated
• InPaint installed from Giveaway of the Day site

January 10, 2014:
• Uninstalled McAfee Security Scan Plus which came "bundled" with Adobe Flash (I already have McAfee SecurityCenter)

Here are the two websites that mention Adblock Plus' 37,000 filters:

[1 of 2]
Adblock Plus • View topic - Adblock Plus slows Firefox site load time on warm restarts.
https://adblockplus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17158#p80749

[says Adblock Plus has 37,000 filters.]

[2 of 2]
How to Remove Ads, Wasted Page Space and Annoying Content
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-remove-ads-wasted-page-space-and-annoying-content.htm

 

<<
Performance

After a few years of using ABP, I started searching for the source of the constant freezes and memory leaks I was having in my otherwise smoothly running Firefox. EasyList and the other popular filter lists sadly turned out to be the culprits. This is what I found:

(1) ABP with subscription lists enabled accounted for 40% of Firefox's internal memory usage, roughly 40MB or about the same as Firefox's own code (not to be confused with the total RAM usage as reported by Task Manager and the like, which is around 200MB for me). Removing the lists entirely (disabling them is not enough!) and leaving only the manual lists reduced this to 400KB, which is pretty much the average of all add-ons;

(2) Firefox reacted much more smoothly and froze much less when loading pages with the lists disabled;

(3) EasyList contains 37,000 filters at the moment and more are added every week. Only 100 or 200 of those filters had ever had any hits, despite months or years of browsing.

The reason popular filter lists make Firefox slow is because of their size. All filters need to be loaded and possibly applied on each page, which is a gargantuan task.

<<
 

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Those threads refer to performing a quick scan soon after a booting your PC, not having waited until everything has loaded on your system.

 

My issue is with performing a *full* scan after waiting until everything has loaded on my system. 

 

And how do I know if and when everything is loaded on my system?  I have Process Lasso, and if I click on it, I can see any program that is loaded or running, it's location on my PC, it's CPU usage, its drain on memory, etc.  I actually bought a copy of the Process Lasso software after first obtaining it on the Giveaway of the Day website, and have used it for years to monitor the programs running on my PC.

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Its general info on what makes scan time vary....

 

For the most part, those two pages talk about Quick Scans, though, not Full Scans.

 

I had the free version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for about five years.

 

I only this week bought a license for the Pro version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, and was wondering if the reason for my Full Scan time jumping from 1 hr 15 mins to 2 hrs 15 mins was related to either of the following two things:

 

(1) going from the free version to the pro version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

 

(2) installing Adblock Plus (subscribing to both the EasyList mega-filter *and* the Malware Domains mega-filter) and Adblock Plus Pop-up Addon in Firefox, and installing Adblock Plus in Internet Explorer.

 

I think I just stumbled on an easy way to find out: I'll unsubscribe from the EasyList and Malware Domains filters in the Firefox version of Adblock Plus and then try a Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Full Scan.

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The info provide applies to both Quick Scans and Full Scans. Also Full scans are really not needed as a Quick scan will find all infections. Please see below for info on different scan types....

1. Going from Free Version to Pro version does not change scan times....

2. Adblock has nothing to do with scan times as well AFAIK....

Scan Types explained.

An additional note, here is how the 3 scan types break down:

  • Quick Scan:
    • Processes and files running in memory
    • Files and folders that infections are known install themselves
    • Registry
    • Heuristics checks to look for new and unknown infections
  • Flash Scan: Note: If anything is found by a Flash Scan, then it is recommended that you also perform a Quick Scan to verify there are no additional infected items on your system
    • Processes and files running in memory
    • Heuristics checks to look for new and unknown infections
  • Full Scan:
    • Processes and files running in memory
    • All files and folders
    • Registry
    • Heuristics checks to look for new and unknown infections
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Hi, Stephe: :)

 

In addition to Firefox's expert information...

 

ABP is a browser extension.

Why would it have ANY impact on MBAM (or any other) scan times?

<just asking, as I cannot see how there would be a connection??>

(I've run ABP in Fx for many years on many versions of Windows + MBAM & have never observed it interfering with or slowing scans.)

 

I think the information Firefox provided would be more likely to explain what you're seeing?

(Archive files, lots of temps files, more "data", more registry entries,  hardware changes, perhaps other security applications, etc).

 

As was already suggested, routine Full scans with MBAM are neither necessary nor recommended.

It's up to you, but frequent full scans will cause wear on your hard drive.

Besides, if you have MBAM PRO (alongside a robust AV & safe computing practices), the real-time protection will help to PREVENT infection, which is far preferable to trying to CLEAN UP something already on the computer.

 

Just a few home-user thoughts.

 

Cheers! :)

 

daledoc1

 

 

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Hi, Stephe: :)

 

>ABP is a browser extension.

>

>Why would it have ANY impact on MBAM (or any other) scan times?

     I thought it might.  I thought that maybe those 37,000 filters

were all inside Firefox somewhere.  The more I think of it, the more

I realize that the reason Adblock Plus slows the opening of Firefox

is because it's loading the filters -- because they are *not* "all

inside Firefox somewhere."

><just asking, as I cannot see how there would be a connection??>

     I thought there might be.  I was making unfounded assumptions;

grasping at straws.  Truly.

>(I've run ABP in Fx for many years on many versions of Windows +

>MBAM & have never observed it interfering with or slowing scans.)

     I see.  I jumped to the conclusion that there might be a link between

all the programs I added recently and the increased Full Scan time in

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.

>I think the information Firefox provided would be more likely to

>explain what you're seeing?

>

>(Archive files, lots of temps files, more "data", more registry entries,  

>hardware changes, perhaps other security applications, etc).

That's the problem; not really.

I installed Malwarebytes Anti-Rootkit, Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit,

Adblock Plus, Adblock Plus Pop-up Addon, Webutation, Adobe Flash

Player 11 for Internet Explorer, Adblock Plus for Internet Explorer,

activated Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Pro, installed Inpaint, and

uninstalled McAfee Security Scan Plus.

The only thing I neglected to mention before is that I tried twice to

set up a new administrative account so I could use a non-administrative

account for regular computing, but I was unsatisfied with the results

and used System Restore to eliminate them, which caused System

Restore to operate very slowly for awhile before a few re-boots made

things work smoothly again. Maybe that created all sorts of weirdness

that created extra files that Malwarebytes Anti-Malware has to slog

through during a Full Scan?

>As was already suggested, routine Full scans with MBAM are neither

>necessary nor recommended.

Unnecessary I picked up on, but not recommended?  I was not aware.

>It's up to you, but frequent full scans will cause wear on your hard drive.

Ah.  Understood.  My scheduled McAfee scans do enough of that already.    

>Besides, if you have MBAM PRO (alongside a robust AV & safe computing

>practices), the real-time protection will help to PREVENT infection, which is

>far preferable to trying to CLEAN UP something already on the computer.

Agreed.  And that's why I bought MBAM PRO.  :)

>Just a few home-user thoughts.

Much appreciated.  Thank you.

 

Stephe

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Hi:

 

Yes, adding too many extensions to one's Fx profile can negatively impact performance of the Fx browser.

If you are experiencing performance problems with Fx performance you can try some basic diagnostics and Mozilla Safe Mode, and you can even start fresh with a new profile and then import only what you need, e.g. bookmarks.

 

But Fx extensions installed locally into Fx (such as ABP) are NOT globally installed security applications running on the computer outside Fx.

So it's hard to imagine how would they affect MBAM scans.

 

And of course, one's hardware specifications would also impact the computer's performance, scan times, etc.

 

"More is sometimes less" when it comes to computer security.

Installing lots of "extra" security programs -- especially those with real-time protection -- will actually hamper your security and cause crashes, slowdowns, conflicts and other performance problems.

 

Best regards,

 

daledoc1

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  • 2 months later...

Malwarebytes anti malware doesn't take too much time on scanning in my opinion. It's the adblock plus that had certain issues which were later fixed. I was having similar issues in adblock chrome extension, but later I saw an article by ABP that it had few issues which were fixed later on.

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You have replied to an old article and I use the extension with no issues.  Do you have some solid information or facts to back up this claim?

Unfortunately, I haven't saved that link, but here are some sources where I read that it's a risk for security that's why it was removed from Google Play store too. Please have a look at them:

http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/52361/is-adblock-plus-a-security-risk

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9242853/Fake_AdBlock_Plus_app_removed_from_Google_39_s_Play_store

 

I hope it would be enough to support my claims. I'll also send you the link to articcle I was talking about if I found it again.

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