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Do I have bogus Premium Malwarebytes Installed?


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Premium Malwarebytes 3.5.1

When I disconnect from the internet, and run Malwarebytes, I am used to the Update not working, or staying orange and not turning green, or receiving a popup warning. Formerly, I either ran Malwarebytes without the update, or was forced to reconnect temporarily so the Update Step of the Scan would complete, and that circle would be green. Now, even if I am disconnected, the Update graphic runs and shows green.

Just now when I rebooted and ran a Scan unplugged, there were two popups stating, Unable to contact license server.  Check your network connection, or contact your system administrator for help.

This popup appeared twice, then Malwarebytes loaded.

On a side note, I shut down Firefox and run CCleaner, and it shows double my usual temp files and cookies, 1 G instead of 500 MB.

On the attached, you see on the bottom right the network connection is off, and the pup up appears when I clicked the Malwarebytes icon. But after closing it twice, Malwarebytes loaded as normal.

PopupMessageforMalwarebytesWhenDisconnected09212018.jpg

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(1) May I ask, is Malwarebytes owned by the same owner as ten years ago? Or, it has brought aboard new investors? Or, new management?

(2) Once the update is complete, I shouldn't have to be plugged in to the internet to complete the scan. Or, it didn't used to be.

(3) It used to be, I had to actually be connected to the internet for the, "Check for Updates" to do its thing. Now the graphic shows completed, with no connection. View attached.

(4) If need be I will make a movie of what is taking place on screen showing the connection is turned off during, "Check for Updates."

PreScanGraphicLooksOperationalWhenDisconnected09212018.jpg

 

Edited by longbeachlouise
corrected wrong operation in description!
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3 hours ago, longbeachlouise said:

(1) May I ask, is Malwarebytes owned by the same owner as ten years ago? Or, it has brought aboard new investors? Or, new management?

(2) Once the update is complete, I shouldn't have to be plugged in to the internet to complete the scan. Or, it didn't used to be.

(3) It used to be, I had to actually be connected to the internet for the, "Check for Updates" to do its thing. Now the graphic shows completed, with no connection. View attached.

(4) If need be I will make a movie of what is taking place on screen showing the connection is turned off during, "Check for Updates."

Yes, they're owned by the same CEO, Marcin Kleczynski, the original founder and creator of Malwarebytes.  You can find out more here and take a look through the various announcements and press releases from the company here.  While some things have changed, overall the mission has remained the same: to provide the world with tools to remove and prevent malware because everyone has the right to a malware free existence :) .

That's correct, you should be able to complete a scan without being online.  Clicking through the error message should allow you to launch Malwarebytes and perform a scan without being online.  Basically the trouble is that the anti-piracy mechanisms and license validation process that performs periodic checkins with the licensing server are causing this message to be displayed when the product hasn't been able to connect to the licensing server in a while, but it shouldn't stop the program from being able to scan.  You just might have to click through the message a few times to get there.  I will bring this issue up with the team to see if anything can be done to streamline the process because it really shouldn't be necessary for it to come up multiple times before allowing you to proceed with using the software.

It should show an error message like "unable to contact update servers" or something like that when there is no connection available and you try to update manually, however if it is the automatic update that occurs when launching a scan then it is normal for it to just proceed with the scan if it is unable to download updates.

It shouldn't be necessary to make a video of it but you can if you wish just to better document it for the QA team.  I'll be reporting your findings and feedback to them in my weekly report so that they can hopefully work on improving the user experience because you have definitely revealed some areas where things could be made better than they are now.

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Thank you thank you thank you! I am much reassured by your answer #1. The other is superficial. It is a reasonable question in today's climate, where innovators launch a good thing, and the $$ is too good to refuse to fall into questionable investors' hands. For instance, Lifelock was bought by Synantec, then its users' email addresses were exposed . . . Isn't that a surprise?

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Yep, I hear you.  There have been several occasions I know of where someone was trying to buy Malwarebytes from Marcin but he refused to sell specifically because he's seen this sort of thing happen to too many good tools, products and companies where they get swallowed up by a larger vendor only to have their product(s) turned into something that's just a shadow of its former self.  The people behind Malwarebytes are still just as passionate as they've always been and they know that while money is important because Developers, Researchers and everyone else has to make a living of course, and developing technology and supporting products does cost money, at the end of the day the true measure of success comes from the users and customers, so if they aren't protected and they aren't satisfied then nothing else matters and all of their efforts would have no value.

I'm a former employee of Malwarebytes myself.  I was with the company for close to 8 years so I was there for a lot of the changes and growth that Malwarebytes went through, and all along, even as things like marketing, financing, subscriptions/licensing etc. became more important, the organization never lost sight of its original mission and priorities to keep people safe and to destroy malware wherever it hides.

If you have any further questions or feedback please don't hesitate to post.  I know that user/customer feedback is still a huge part of what drives Malwarebytes (hence why they have me here reporting my findings from the forums each week) so I know they haven't lost touch with the community and what's most important.

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exile360 , i love ya! As a little isolated person who observes shady things, it's nice to have some commiseration!

Separate Topic: What have I done? I downloaded HandBrake from: https://handbrake.fr

No problem so far, but CNET users complain that the link CNET provided bungled

 

Quote

 

Cons

Would not work on many newer DVD's AND IT CONTAINS MALWARE!!! ADSERV REDIRECT. DO NOT DOWNLOAD. Malwarebytes kept blocking the adserv popup. When exploring options I saw that a lot of free media software contains the browser redirect called "n65adserv.com". Thinking back to the fact that I had recently downloaded Handbrake I uninstalled it and the popup problem disappeared as well.

 

but I think I downloaded from a safe site, than the one they downloaded from.

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