Malwarebytes "support"

[N4AOF]

Well I see that dealing with Malwarebytes (the company, not the software) has not gotten any easier...  in fact it seems to have become even more complex.

I've been using Malwarebytes for about a year now and I just got my renewal notice for my upcoming renewal next month.  That reminder caused me to think about Malwarebytes, otherwise I generally just count on the program's real time protection and scheduled scans but don't think about it.

The first thing that happened when I thought about Malwarebytes is that I opened the system tray intending to open the program -- hmmmm... No icon in the system tray, that seems odd. So I looked in the menu and didn't find an entry for Malwarebytes. Then I looked in the programfiles folder and didn't find it there.  Uh Oh! Surprise, surprise, Malwarebytes had completely disappeared from this computer.  OK, reinstall MB3 and let it do a complete scan which ought to take quite a while on a system with a bit over 11TB of hard drive storage - then I discover that Malwarebytes assumes it is so much smarter than I am, so I won't let me configure it to scan anything besides the parts of the C: drive that wants to scan.  Instead I have to manually scan each of the other drives.  OK.  Funny, I thought I remembered there being a way to configure where it scanned when I first set up the program a year ago, but obviously there is no such setting in MB3.  

 

Funny thing is that MB2 and MB3 both had "Self Protection" turned on - but obviously MB3 didn't protect itself very well because something removed it completely.  Of course the Self Protection setting not working shouldn't have surprised me very much because I already knew that the "Notify me when full version updates are available" had NOT worked in MB2 which never notified me about MB3 even though it had been checking for updates regularly and had the "Notify me...." setting turned on.  I had only found out about the full version update to MB3 when I had a problem with MB2 and support told me to install the latest version of MB3.

 

Meanwhile I came to the website to ask "Support" about changing my subscription from the current two computers to three computers when this subscription runs out in a month.  I figured I needed to ask because last year I needed to go from one computer to two computers and Malwarebytes made that rather more difficult than I would have expected (ended up having to completely cancel my subscription and get a refund, then start a whole new subscription for two computers).  I had little hope that the process would be easier this year, but I didn't really expect that just asking the question was going to be a more complex runaround.

I went to the Support page where Malwarebytes brags about NOT having live support (as if that is supposed to be a good thing) and telling you how great their email support is.  So I followed the link that said it was for email support. THAT link went to some other company's "live chat" page which provided another link that took me back to Malwarebytes to their "email" support (a web form, of course), where I was eventually able to type in my question.  Along the way, I was treated to a page telling me that I needed to log in to be able to read and follow the page, but when I clicked on the Log In link, it took me to another page telling me that customer log in didn't exist yet, and providing another link back to a page telling me that I didn't need to log in.  (I'm sorry if this saga sounds confusing -- but it's confusing because wading through the malwarebytes.com website tonight has been very confusing.)

 

Actually, at this point I'm beginning to have second thoughts about renewing my subscription for Malwarebytes at all.   The program is supposed to provide good protection but I have to worry when settings like "Notify me..." and especially "Self Protection" simply don't work.

[Malwarebytes]

***This is an automated reply***

Hi,

Thanks for posting in the Malwarebytes 3 Help forum.

 

If you are having technical issues with our Windows product, please do the following: 

Spoiler

If you haven't done so already, please run these two tools and then attach the logs in your next reply:

NOTE: The tools and the information obtained is safe and not harmful to your privacy or your computer, please allow the programs to run if blocked by your system.

• Farbar Recovery Scan Tool (FRST)
  1. Download FRST and save it to your desktop
     Note: You need to run the version compatible with your system. You can check here if you're not sure if your computer is 32-bit or 64-bit
  2. Double-click to run FRST and when the tool opens click "Yes" to the disclaimer
  3. Press the "Scan" button
  4. This will produce two files in the same location (directory) as FRST: FRST.txt and Addition.txt
     • Leave the log files in the current location, they will be automatically collected by mb-check once you complete the next set of instructions
• MB-Check
  1. Download MB-Check and save to your desktop
  2. Double-click to run MB-Check and within a few second the command window will open, press "Enter" to accept the EULA then click "OK" 
  3. This will produce one log file on your desktop: mb-check-results.zip
     • This file will include the FRST logs generated from the previous set of instructions
     • Attach this file to your forum post by clicking on the "Drag files here to attach, or choose files..." or simply drag the file to the attachment area

One of our experts will be able to assist you shortly.

 

If you are having licensing issues, please do the following: 

Spoiler

For any of these issues:

• Renewals
• Refunds (including double billing)
• Cancellations
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• Transaction Receipt

Please contact our support team at https://support.malwarebytes.com/community/consumer/pages/contact-us to get help

If you need help looking up your license details, please head here: https://support.malwarebytes.com/docs/DOC-1264 

 

Thanks in advance for your patience.

-The Malwarebytes Forum Team

[AdvancedSetup]

Hello @N4AOF

I'm very sorry to hear of your issues with obtaining support. I've sent an email asking what the best way to increase license count is and either myself or someone else will reply to you tomorrow. It's currently past midnight here in California.

Thank you and I hope we're able to provide a smoother process for you.

Ron

 

[N4AOF]

On 2/6/2018 at 3:35 AM, AdvancedSetup said:

Hello @N4AOF

I'm very sorry to hear of your issues with obtaining support. I've sent an email asking what the best way to increase license count is and either myself or someone else will reply to you tomorrow. It's currently past midnight here in California.

Thank you and I hope we're able to provide a smoother process for you.

Ron

 

Well, at least there SEEMS TO BE some live person somewhere at Malwarebytes -- too bad that live person isn't in their so-called "Support"

I did get an answer (of sorts) to my question about going from my current 2 computer license to a 3 computer license at renewal.  Basically the answer was We Don't Give A Damn, That's Your Problem.   According to your Gabriel: "we cannot add additional or remove additional devices onto a license" -- which didn't exactly answer my question but did make it clear that if I want to go forward with Malwarebytes for my three computers, I would need to simply let the current license expire then buy a new license for the three computers (or, of course, I could be stupid enough to just buy 1 new license at full price now, and buy the two computer renewal for the other two computers separately).

But I don't think I am going to have to face that problem because I think it is clearly time to look for malware protection that actually works right.  Malwarebytes had good scores on tests against a variety of threats in tests run by some industry media, but none of those tests involved actually having malwarebytes running on a PC in actual operation.   Having run Malwarebytes for a year I have found simply too many problems and failures for me to trust it going forward - as an example, here are SOME of the problems I have encountered while running Malwarebytes for one year:

1. While I was running Malwarebytes 2.x with the software set to check for and install updates and to notify me whenever a full version update was available, it did NOT notify me when MB3 was released.

2. Several occasions while running MB2 and later MB3, I would find a notice that realtime protection was off.  Of course, each time I would turn it on, but it concerned me because I had certainly never turned it off - so how had realtime protection turned itself off?

3. I am currently running MB3.0.6 which tells me it is completely up to date.  BUT here on the website, I see that MB3.3 was released several months ago.  If 3.3 was released in November of last year, I cannot see how 3.0.6 can tell me "No updates are available."   Clearly your "Check for updates" is still totally broken.

4. A few days ago I found that MB3 had been completely removed from this computer -- despite the fact that "self protection" has always been turned on and I certainly did NOT uninstall malwarebytes.

5. Even a quick glance through this forum reveals that all of these problems have been experienced (and reported!) by other users, but no solutions have been implemented. 

 

Hey!  Wow!  While I have been typing this MB3 just popped up a notice that a new version update IS available -- despite having twice told me that NO updates are available when I checked several minutes ago.  So apparently the update notification does work - OCCASIONALLY - when it feels like it.  Sorry guys, but malware protection that works occasionally when it feels like it is NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

[AdvancedSetup]

I can empathize with you on the purchasing issues and I know it's not much help at this point, but we are working on the feature you've requested. I don't know exactly when it will be ready but hopefully by later this year.

As for issues with the program I can certainly help you with that. All programs regardless of vendor has a certain volume of customers that have issues with any program and some maintenance may be required. If you'd like me to assist you in checking on your computer please let me know and I'll be more than happy to assist you. Not including customers, I have several of my own computers as well as several friends and family that run the program and none of them are having any issues.

As for the removal of Malwarebytes (without forensic analysis it would be very difficult to determine exactly what happened, but I know that some Microsoft Windows 10 updates made programs seem as though they were removed)

Thank you again and let me know if you'd like further assistance.

Ron