Turning Off Notification Messages

[Glitch]

Is there any way to turn off those damn annoying advertising and notification pop-ups?

They always make themselves the active window when they pop-up, disrupting the application you happen to be running at the time.  Turning off the Status bar notification under Settings does absolutely nothing, and it pop ups these damn advertisement windows every 30 seconds in the middle of my screen.  It is so damn annoying that unless this problem can be resolved soon, I will have no alternative but to dump Malwarebytes and buy another product.

In case you were wondering Malwarebytes is not the ONLY application running on the computer, and it is really damn annoying when they pretend they own your computer and do whatever they damn well please.  That is not the kind of company I want to do business with.

[Malwarebytes]

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[exile360]

Greetings,

Malwarebytes does not display any advertisements in its tray notifications as far as I know (such behavior would be considered adware which is something Malwarebytes as an organization is very much against).  Could you describe the text of the pop-ups you're seeing or perhaps get a screenshot of one of them?  If they are notifications of something like websites being blocked or threats being detected then it could actually be a sign that your system may be infected with something, however it is also a possibility that one of the applications you are running is triggering the events which are causing the notifications to be displayed, if for example you use any peer-to-peer applications (Bittorrent, Skype, some online games that use peer-to-peer technology) and you can find out more about such scenarios and what you might do to eliminate the notifications by reviewing the information found here and here (follow the instructions under the Exclude an Application that Connects to the Internet section).

If you are receiving some other type of alert or notification, please let us know as the type of alert will affect what may be done to eliminate it.

Thanks

[Glitch]

Every message Malwarebytes produces takes control of the PC, interrupting applications that are in progress.  The annoying message I'm getting every 30 seconds asks me if I want to update to a new version of Malwarebytes, giving me only two options - install or cancel.  When I select cancel then 30 seconds later the exact same message pops up, once again interrupting my other applications.  This is damn annoying and unacceptable behavior for any application.  Malwarebytes does not have a monopoly on my computer and I resent their hubris pretending that they do.  I consider it malicious adware when you hock your goods every 30 seconds and refuse to allow the user to control their own PC, despite your claims to the contrary.

Every other notification Malwarebytes produces does the exact same thing.  Even when just informing you that the scan was completed successfully Malwarebytes has to interrupt my other applications and take control just to popup a message saying everything was fine.

If you cannot tell me by the end of the day how to turn off these damn ads and extraneous messages, or at least make it so that they do not become the active window and interrupt my other applications, then I will buy another product tomorrow.

[exile360]

First off, it is not Malwarebytes intent to take control of your system or to interrupt full screen applications, however unfortunately this does sometimes occur because even though they are configured not to take top priority over full-screen applications, it sometimes still does depending on the application and how it is coded to handle its own priority as well as how Windows itself handles it which can vary from one application to another and from one version of Windows to another.  Second, with regards to that specific notification about a new version being available, there are two options.  First, you may open Malwarebytes and go to Settings>Application and click on the Install Application Updates to install the new version or download and install the latest version manually from here, or if you do not wish to install the new version, you may change the two settings circled at the top in the Application Updates section as shown in the below image (and you may also want to turn off the other two settings I've circled under Notifications as that will eliminate most other notifications):

You can find more info about this here.  Also, if the new version has already been downloaded you may need to remove it in order to eliminate the reminders to install it since it is already prepared to install (assuming you had those top two settings enabled as they are by default, which is why it showed up in the first place).  To do this, you should go to C:\ProgramData\Malwarebytes\MBAMService\instlrupdate and delete any installer you find there.

With regards to the notifications following a scan, unfortunately there is no way to eliminate them short of deleting your scheduled scans as they are configured to be displayed no matter what due to the fact that, if malware is detected then your action would be required to remove the threats, however if you scan manually on a regular basis then you don't really need any scheduled scans anyway, especially since you have the paid version of the product with its real-time protection active as this greatly reduces the chances of getting infected with anything.

If this is not acceptable to you then you may pursue a refund/cancel your subscription if you would prefer to do that instead.  If so, then you will likely find the information in this support article to be of help.  It provides contact information for the e-commerce providers that handle Malwarebytes subscriptions so that you can contact the one that handles your account and ask them to terminate it and refund the purchase cost assuming it is within the 30 day grace period according to the End User License Agreement which you may find a copy of here.

If there is anything else that we can assist you with please let us know.

Thanks

[Glitch]

If your software cannot distinguish between a benign "scan completed successfully" message that requires no action from the user from an alert message that requires the user's attention, then that is an indication of piss poor programming.

The Settings window was the very first thing I changed.  It appears to have absolutely no effect whatsoever.  With both Application Update and Notification settings set to "Off," I continue to get spammed with messages, and they never close automatically either.  Despite the completely bogus claim that notifications close after 5 seconds.

I do appreciate the quick and detailed response, but I find your software's behavior to be wholly unacceptable.

[exile360]

It isn't my software, I just help out here on the forums, however I get what you're saying and I have requested on multiple occasions that they alter the behavior of the software when a scan comes back clean so that its notification can be disabled so that only scans which actually require action are presented to the user however this change has not yet been made, likely due to the fact that the last several releases have largely been focused around fixing bugs/issues as well as compatibility with the latest builds of Windows 10 in addition to the usual enhancements to detection and protection capabilities for new threats.

The problem with the upgrade notifications was why I mentioned deleting the installer, as I've seen that issue reported previously and had users resolve it by deleting the already downloaded installer.  With that said, we obviously advise keeping the application up to date as much as possible for the best stability and protection and once you install version 3.6.1, if you leave those settings for application updates disabled, you shouldn't see these notifications the next time a program version is released (though you will need to check manually, either via the Install Application Updates button I mentioned before or by checking the Malwarebytes website or here on the forums to find out about it and download/install it).  As for them persisting past 5 seconds as they do, this is because certain notifications (those of the "alert" type basically, where there is an issue which requires your action to address it) are not bound to that timer in the same way that typical informational notifications would be (such as when a malicious website gets blocked or a threat has been detected by real-time protection and quarantined).  Basically they are programmed to remain visible so that you are made aware that your action is still required/pending, and that the software/your system will remain in this state (i.e. infected or out of date etc.) until that action on your part is taken.  At least that's my understanding of it.  Someone from the Malwarebytes staff may correct me if I am mistaken here.

[Glitch]

I apologize.  I was under the impression that you worked for Malwarebytes and was providing technical support.  I did not realize that you were just contributing freely and not in the employ of Malwarebytes.  That is very generous of you.

I do not mind being notified that there is a new update available and asking me whether or not I want to install the update now or not, but once I respond with "cancel" I should not be repeatedly harassed every 30 seconds with the same question.  That makes it malicious behavior, and it really pisses me off.

When using 3D modeling software that takes a very long time to render, I do not appreciate it when Malwarebytes interrupts that process just to tell me a scan was completed successfully.  That also pisses me off.  They can display messages without making it the active window.

Every time Malwarebytes displays any message, even those that require no action from the user, they take control of the PC, interrupting all other processes.  That may have been acceptable behavior for software back in the solo-tasking world of the 1980s, but not today.

I expect my security software to run quietly in the background, only popping to the foreground whenever my attention is required.  The developers at Malwarebytes are pretty damn arrogant to think that you should only be running their software and nothing else.

[exile360]

As I said, I believe it is programmed not to interrupt full screen applications (i.e. video games, movies, and in your case, your 3D modeling software, however unfortunately sometimes it still does depending on the application and how it is coded to deal with pop-ups from other applications).

I definitely agree that it should not show the notification every 30 seconds, and it is my understanding that this is a bug if it is being displayed that frequently.  I thought they had already addressed it, however that appears to not be the case as your experience has shown.  I will bring this information up to them and recommend that they change it to decrease the frequency of these notifications and I will also ask that they review how the notifications take priority to see if it can be reduced so that it does not interrupt full-screen applications as much as possible, assuming there is more that they can do in that regard.  It may be related to the fact that it likely is configured to show up above other running applications that are in windowed mode (i.e. not full-screen) so that when users are just browsing the web or working within normal office applications etc., they will receive the notifications (otherwise having any kind of notification system would be pretty pointless as no one would ever see them), so if an app doesn't take full priority when in full-screen mode there probably isn't much that Malwarebytes can do programmatically to correct this behavior, but as I said, I will bring it up to see if there are any further steps they can take to improve the behavior and reduce interruptions of full-screen applications.

You also must realize that, at least programmatically, these are notifications which require action.  When an update is available which requires installation, the software remains out of date until the new version is installed.  Upon completion of a scan, if threats were found, then the user must take action to remove them, and unfortunately, at least for now, the "scan complete, no threats detected" message is treated the same way.  I do not know if all Malwarebytes notifications behave in the same manner or not, or if it is even possible to change which notifications interrupt other apps and which ones don't (Windows might only allow for notifications to/pop-ups etc. to take a single level of priority which might explain much of the problem), but I will ask for it to be reviewed to see if it can be made less obtrusive without losing its utility (as I said, if all notifications were configured to be displayed underneath all other windows/applications, then users would pretty much only see a notification if they're staring at their desktop with nothing else running at the time, or with only windowed apps that don't occupy that portion of the screen running which wouldn't be very useful to anyone).

Finally, while I do understand your frustration, I do ask that you be specific because it may be the difference between a bug and the programmed/expected behavior.  When you say every 30 seconds for the update notification, did you actually time it or is it something more like once every 15 minutes or once every hour?  I am not claiming that you are not being honest, but I would completely understand if you were using hyperbole to get your point across in expressing your frustrations with its current behavior and I just want to make certain that I don't go to them with inaccurate information because they need to know specifics to address the problem (obviously, because there's literally a line of code in there that tells it how frequently to display this notification after being dismissed) and if I tell them 30 seconds and they check and find that it's already set to a duration much greater than that, then they will assume it is a bug and won't address the line of code actually causing the behavior that you find undesirable.

[gonzo]

The notification about a new version does not appear every 30 seconds, but it is very irritating to be continually reminded.  I update when I am ready to update, but as Samuel said, the SETTINGS window allows you to not have it inform you or download it and nag you about installing it.  I just leave it on my screen until I am ready, because it will come back if I X out of it.

Advertising for other products ONLY happens if you have the free version of Malwarebytes.  If you have a premium subscription, you will not see ANY of those.

Notifications about issues that affect your security will be shown regardless, because.....they affect your security.

If you don't want to see messages about scan completion, schedule your scans to happen during hours you aren't using the computer, and set the recovery so that it is not an interruption.

As far as telling me that a scan was run and no errors were encountered, I am pleased about, but for a reason you would not expect.  Bugs in earlier versions of the product prevented scans from running if a new version was available and was being actively ignored by the user.  Now I know its working correctly, and I'm rather pleased about that.

 

[Glitch]

1 hour ago, exile360 said:

As I said, I believe it is programmed not to interrupt full screen applications (i.e. video games, movies, and in your case, your 3D modeling software, however unfortunately sometimes it still does depending on the application and how it is coded to deal with pop-ups from other applications).

I definitely agree that it should not show the notification every 30 seconds, and it is my understanding that this is a bug if it is being displayed that frequently.  I thought they had already addressed it, however that appears to not be the case as your experience has shown.  I will bring this information up to them and recommend that they change it to decrease the frequency of these notifications and I will also ask that they review how the notifications take priority to see if it can be reduced so that it does not interrupt full-screen applications as much as possible, assuming there is more that they can do in that regard.  It may be related to the fact that it likely is configured to show up above other running applications that are in windowed mode (i.e. not full-screen) so that when users are just browsing the web or working within normal office applications etc., they will receive the notifications (otherwise having any kind of notification system would be pretty pointless as no one would ever see them), so if an app doesn't take full priority when in full-screen mode there probably isn't much that Malwarebytes can do programmatically to correct this behavior, but as I said, I will bring it up to see if there are any further steps they can take to improve the behavior and reduce interruptions of full-screen applications.

You also must realize that, at least programmatically, these are notifications which require action.  When an update is available which requires installation, the software remains out of date until the new version is installed.  Upon completion of a scan, if threats were found, then the user must take action to remove them, and unfortunately, at least for now, the "scan complete, no threats detected" message is treated the same way.  I do not know if all Malwarebytes notifications behave in the same manner or not, or if it is even possible to change which notifications interrupt other apps and which ones don't (Windows might only allow for notifications to/pop-ups etc. to take a single level of priority which might explain much of the problem), but I will ask for it to be reviewed to see if it can be made less obtrusive without losing its utility (as I said, if all notifications were configured to be displayed underneath all other windows/applications, then users would pretty much only see a notification if they're staring at their desktop with nothing else running at the time, or with only windowed apps that don't occupy that portion of the screen running which wouldn't be very useful to anyone).

Finally, while I do understand your frustration, I do ask that you be specific because it may be the difference between a bug and the programmed/expected behavior.  When you say every 30 seconds for the update notification, did you actually time it or is it something more like once every 15 minutes or once every hour?  I am not claiming that you are not being honest, but I would completely understand if you were using hyperbole to get your point across in expressing your frustrations with its current behavior and I just want to make certain that I don't go to them with inaccurate information because they need to know specifics to address the problem (obviously, because there's literally a line of code in there that tells it how frequently to display this notification after being dismissed) and if I tell them 30 seconds and they check and find that it's already set to a duration much greater than that, then they will assume it is a bug and won't address the line of code actually causing the behavior that you find undesirable.

Applications are not coded to deal with pop-ups from other applications.  It is the responsibility of the application performing the pop-up not to interrupt existing processes, unless necessary.  Malwarebytes is making all of their messages appear in active windows.  When they do that they interrupt all other processes.  It is also completely unnecessary.  To make matters even worse, even when you make another application active, the Malwarebytes windows remain open and always on top, even when they are no longer suppose to be active.  When their window is no longer the active window it is suppose to return control to the application that is being made active and their window is put into the background.  But that never happens.  Malwarebytes windows always stay open and on top unless specifically closed by the user.  No other application behaves in this manner.

They could display informative messages that require no interaction from the user in the Windows Status Bar.  Or those informative messages could be logged in case the user missed the message when it was initially displayed in a background window and wants to check the status of their security software.  There are several different approaches Malwarebytes could have designed their application to be far less intrusive and disruptive.  If I happen to miss the message that my scan was completed successfully without any issues my world is not about to come to an end.  It is not that critical that I be informed immediately, taking priority over everything else.

As for the repetitive harassing advertisements, the first time it popped up I just selected cancel to close the damn window because it had interrupted my other application.  I do not know how long it took before the second message popped up because I had no reason to time it, but it was certainly under a minute.  I selected "cancel" a second time and was beginning to get annoyed.  When it popped up a third time, again in under a minute, I got pissed.  I just closed the window instead of selecting "cancel" (by selecting the "X" in the upper-right corner of the window), and then I did time it.  It took exactly 30 seconds before the message popped up for the forth time.

That is when I uninstalled Malwarebytes.

FYI, I am running Windows 10 Pro version 1803 build 17134.286.

[Glitch]

1 hour ago, gonzo said:

The notification about a new version does not appear every 30 seconds, but it is very irritating to be continually reminded.  I update when I am ready to update, but as Samuel said, the SETTINGS window allows you to not have it inform you or download it and nag you about installing it.  I just leave it on my screen until I am ready, because it will come back if I X out of it.

Advertising for other products ONLY happens if you have the free version of Malwarebytes.  If you have a premium subscription, you will not see ANY of those.

Notifications about issues that affect your security will be shown regardless, because.....they affect your security.

If you don't want to see messages about scan completion, schedule your scans to happen during hours you aren't using the computer, and set the recovery so that it is not an interruption.

As far as telling me that a scan was run and no errors were encountered, I am pleased about, but for a reason you would not expect.  Bugs in earlier versions of the product prevented scans from running if a new version was available and was being actively ignored by the user.  Now I know its working correctly, and I'm rather pleased about that.

 

In my experience it did pop up a message every 30 seconds.  I'm not exactly sure how long the first two times took, but it was under a minute.  However, I timed it after I closed the window the third time and it took precisely 30 seconds before the window popped open for the fourth time.

I already had all my notifications and updates turned off and set to manual in the Settings window.  It appears to have absolutely no effect.

I do own the premium subscription, and the advertisement I was getting was not from other companies, it was Malwarebytes telling me that there was an update available.

I'm also pleased when a scan completes without finding any problems, but I do not need to have all my other applications interrupted and everything ground to a halt just because Malwarebytes wants to notify me of that fact.

If Malwarebytes can't behave properly, like every other application, then it has no place on my PC.

 

[exile360]

12 minutes ago, Glitch said:

Applications are not coded to deal with pop-ups from other applications.  It is the responsibility of the application performing the pop-up not to interrupt existing processes, unless necessary.  Malwarebytes is making all of their messages appear in active windows.  When they do that they interrupt all other processes.  It is also completely unnecessary.  To make matters even worse, even when you make another application active, the Malwarebytes windows remain open and always on top, even when they are no longer suppose to be active.  When their window is no longer the active window it is suppose to return control to the application that is being made active and their window is put into the background.  But that never happens.  Malwarebytes windows always stay open and on top unless specifically closed by the user.  No other application behaves in this manner.

They could display informative messages that require no interaction from the user in the Windows Status Bar.  Or those informative messages could be logged in case the user missed the message when it was initially displayed in a background window and wants to check the status of their security software.  There are several different approaches Malwarebytes could have designed their application to be far less intrusive and disruptive.  If I happen to miss the message that my scan was completed successfully without any issues my world is not about to come to an end.  It is not that critical that I be informed immediately, taking priority over everything else.

As for the repetitive harassing advertisements, the first time it popped up I just selected cancel to close the damn window because it had interrupted my other application.  I do not know how long it took before the second message popped up because I had no reason to time it, but it was certainly under a minute.  I selected "cancel" a second time and was beginning to get annoyed.  When it popped up a third time, again in under a minute, I got pissed.  I just closed the window instead of selecting "cancel" (by selecting the "X" in the upper-right corner of the window), and then I did time it.  It took exactly 30 seconds before the message popped up for the forth time.

That is when I uninstalled Malwarebytes.

FYI, I am running Windows 10 Pro version 1803 build 17134.286.

Actually, they are.  A program sets its window's priority when launched (this is how Task Manager and other applications can be configured to be always on top).  It is that priority I was referring to and the reason that Malwarebytes' notifications do not always interrupt every full-screen application.  Some are configured to have higher priority than others, and ones lower than a certain threshold end up getting interrupted.  How Malwarebytes is coded is certainly also a factor, however I do know that the Developers have at least attempted to have it not show its notifications on top of any full-screen applications (and to be clear, by full-screen I do not mean maximized as that is not at all the same thing; an example of a full-screen application would be a 3D video game run in full-screen (not windowed) mode where not even the Windows taskbar is visible).  Leaving a status in the UI or logs is insufficient if action is required, because I promise you immediately many more users would complain that they were not told there was a new version available or that their system was infected (we've seen it in the past when there was a bug with the notification system in a previous version where exactly these notifications were not displayed, even though it was logged and would show up in the main UI).  When an action is required because the system is not fully secured (if, for example you lack the best protection available against known current threats due to not having the latest version of the product), it is Malwarebytes' responsibility to inform you of that fact so that you can take action to update your software and secure your system.  I still believe you should have the option to dismiss it at your leisure, so I'm not arguing against that, however any claims about it not being a significant notification are categorically incorrect in my opinion because I know the kinds of changes that go into these releases and why.

I will inform them of the timing behavior though, as that definitely should not be happening every 30 seconds.  I agree completely that this is excessive.

3 minutes ago, Glitch said:

In my experience it did pop up a message every 30 seconds.  I'm not exactly sure how long the first two times took, but it was under a minute.  However, I timed it after I closed the window the third time and it took precisely 30 seconds before the window popped open for the fourth time.

I already had all my notifications and updates turned off and set to manual in the Settings window.  It appears to have absolutely no effect.

I do own the premium subscription, and the advertisement I was getting was not from other companies, it was Malwarebytes telling me that there was an update available.

I'm also pleased when a scan completes without finding any problems, but I do not need to have all my other applications interrupted and everything ground to a halt just because Malwarebytes wants to notify me of that fact.

If Malwarebytes can't behave properly, like every other application, then it has no place on my PC.

 

Those are not advertisements, they are alerts.  When a new version is released, you are notified because you are at that point out of date, the same as you would be if you didn't have the latest version of your web browser, operating system or a third party browser plugin.  It's a security issue, because virtually every release of the software includes improvements to detection and protection capabilities for new threats, not to mention bug fixes.  An advertisement is something that tries to sell you something.  In this case nothing is being sold.  You are being alerted to the fact that a new version is available and your action is required in order to install it, that's all.  I understand you wish to be able to dismiss the notification and install it when you're good and ready, and I will not argue that you shouldn't have that option (I actually agree that you should), however calling it an advertisement is just categorically inaccurate so comparing Malwarebytes to adware/malware or anything else of that nature because of these notifications is hyperbole.  Malwarebytes gains nothing by you installing the latest version.  If anything it costs them because of the bandwidth it consumes on their servers for the large download, not to mention the database updates which are invariably required to get those up to date immediately following an upgrade to a newer build.  It is in your interest to install them to get the best out of the software and to have the latest protection available, not to mention any potential bugfixes a release might contain.  This is the primary motivation behind the update notifications, nothing more.  They'd make them silent and automatic if they could, however as it is, user interaction is still required so these alerts remain a necessity unfortunately.

Again, I will recommend that they investigate the issues with it being displayed above full-screen applications (again, I assume that it what you are referring to, not just a program window that is maximized, as there's no way to avoid that for any application), and the issue with the frequency of the notifications as 30 seconds is far too excessive in my opinion as well.

If you have any further suggestions or feedback please let us know, and thank you for taking the time to go through all of this with us.  We may not see eye to eye on every detail, however we still have the same goals in mind to make Malwarebytes the best application it can be for the sake of the users/customers, so thank you.

[Glitch]

9 minutes ago, exile360 said:

Actually, they are.  A program sets its window's priority when launched (this is how Task Manager and other applications can be configured to be always on top).  It is that priority I was referring to and the reason that Malwarebytes' notifications do not always interrupt every full-screen application.  Some are configured to have higher priority than others, and ones lower than a certain threshold end up getting interrupted.  How Malwarebytes is coded is certainly also a factor, however I do know that the Developers have at least attempted to have it not show its notifications on top of any full-screen applications (and to be clear, by full-screen I do not mean maximized as that is not at all the same thing; an example of a full-screen application would be a 3D video game run in full-screen (not windowed) mode where not even the Windows taskbar is visible).  Leaving a status in the UI or logs is insufficient if action is required, because I promise you immediately many more users would complain that they were not told there was a new version available or that their system was infected (we've seen it in the past when there was a bug with the notification system in a previous version where exactly these notifications were not displayed, even though it was logged and would show up in the main UI).  When an action is required because the system is not fully secured (if, for example you lack the best protection available against known current threats due to not having the latest version of the product), it is Malwarebytes' responsibility to inform you of that fact so that you can take action to update your software and secure your system.  I still believe you should have the option to dismiss it at your leisure, so I'm not arguing against that, however any claims about it not being a significant notification are categorically incorrect in my opinion because I know the kinds of changes that go into these releases and why.

I will inform them of the timing behavior though, as that definitely should not be happening every 30 seconds.  I agree completely that this is excessive.

Those are not advertisements, they are alerts.  When a new version is released, you are notified because you are at that point out of date, the same as you would be if you didn't have the latest version of your web browser, operating system or a third party browser plugin.  It's a security issue, because virtually every release of the software includes improvements to detection and protection capabilities for new threats, not to mention bug fixes.  An advertisement is something that tries to sell you something.  In this case nothing is being sold.  You are being alerted to the fact that a new version is available and your action is required in order to install it, that's all.  I understand you wish to be able to dismiss the notification and install it when you're good and ready, and I will not argue that you shouldn't have that option (I actually agree that you should), however calling it an advertisement is just categorically inaccurate so comparing Malwarebytes to adware/malware or anything else of that nature because of these notifications is hyperbole.  Malwarebytes gains nothing by you installing the latest version.  If anything it costs them because of the bandwidth it consumes on their servers for the large download, not to mention the database updates which are invariably required to get those up to date immediately following an upgrade to a newer build.  It is in your interest to install them to get the best out of the software and to have the latest protection available, not to mention any potential bugfixes a release might contain.  This is the primary motivation behind the update notifications, nothing more.  They'd make them silent and automatic if they could, however as it is, user interaction is still required so these alerts remain a necessity unfortunately.

Again, I will recommend that they investigate the issues with it being displayed above full-screen applications (again, I assume that it what you are referring to, not just a program window that is maximized, as there's no way to avoid that for any application), and the issue with the frequency of the notifications as 30 seconds is far too excessive in my opinion as well.

If you have any further suggestions or feedback please let us know, and thank you for taking the time to go through all of this with us.  We may not see eye to eye on every detail, however we still have the same goals in mind to make Malwarebytes the best application it can be for the sake of the users/customers, so thank you.

Yes, when you create a new window you can establish its priority, but that priority is established with the operating system, not other applications.  Applications are not coded to deal with pop-ups from other applications.  They are coded to give the windows the create a specific priority.  It is the same thing when creating a dialog.  You are telling the operating system that the window is a dialog box and not a regular message box.  It is the operating system that determines the behavior of the window based upon the priority given to it when the window was created.

Malwarebytes is clearly giving their non-interactive messages inappropriate window priorities, which is causing this abnormal behavior.

I thought the whole point of setting it up to be a manual update was to avoid the messages that the application needs to be updated.  If it is going to continuously remind me that I need to update the application, what is the point of having a manual update?

There is a way for Malwarebytes to not display their messages in the foreground, you just mentioned it - window priority.  They create their windows in the foreground deliberately, when we both know that it is completely unnecessary.  Messages whose sole purpose is merely to inform should have the lowest priority, but Malwarebytes gives it the highest priority, and that is just flat out wrong and piss poor application design.

[exile360]

Again, if they had lowest priority they would be hidden behind normal tasks, such as your web browser, or the START screen on Windows 8/8.1 or any other application.  No AV/AM product does this, I assure you, otherwise no one would ever get notified about anything.  If the application you're running in the foreground has insufficient priority, then notifications/dialogs from other applications can and will interrupt it, that's just the way it is, however I do believe there are some third party applications which can alter this behavior to force the windows you choose to remain on top, so that could be a possible solution to the problem in your case.

As for the update settings, yes, you are correct.  If you've had those options disabled since you first installed the application, then it should not have downloaded the new version and prompted you to install it, so there could be a bug there, or it could be that the configuration files for your Malwarebytes installation got corrupted somehow causing it to fail to read and honor them correctly.  With that said, I have not heard of any other reports of this issue so I suspect it is likely that this is an isolated case, however I will still report it in case the QA team can replicate it, because it could still be a bug.

They create their windows in the foreground deliberately because they must in order to be seen.  Most users run applications maximized, especially internet browsers, so there is no other way about it to notify users effectively without giving their notifications higher priority than normal, but they aren't forcing them on top of everything (otherwise the gaming community would be up in arms, and believe me, we do hear it from the isolated cases where a particular game (usually an older one) hasn't set its priority properly and ends up being interrupted by the notifications, but those reports are rare).  If Malwarebytes had its notifications set to display on top with the absolute highest priority, then every gamer running Malwarebytes would be dropped out of their game any time a notification was displayed, however that is definitely not happening (and I can testify to that fact first-hand being a gamer myself who also runs Malwarebytes).  I have 1 game which is over 15 years old that Malwarebytes interrupts with its notifications, however all of my other games behave properly and are not disrupted by the notifications at all.

Is the 3D rendering software you're using actually running in full-screen mode or is it just a maximized application window?  If it is the latter then you cannot expect Malwarebytes (or any other security product) to conceal its notifications behind that window, otherwise that would actually be improper behavior because such notifications would only be seen by users doing absolutely nothing with their system except staring at their desktop background (as I already mentioned), which is not a legitimate use case or expected behavior for any security application and its notifications/alerts, especially any with the level of priority that user intervention is required, which is precisely how these particular notifications are treated.  I assume these are given higher priority than informational notifications like blocked websites etc., but I have not tested to verify.  I have however observed that most of the applications which I run in full-screen mode are not disrupted by Malwarebytes' notifications.

[Glitch]

you are absolutely right, badly behaved programs will interrupt other processes.  It is either the result of very bad program design, or the developers simply don't care what they interrupt because the arrogant pricks think the world revolves around their application.  Either way the end result pisses off the end-user.

I'm using DAZ Studio, Hexagon, and Bryce software for my 3D modeling, and since it takes so long to render I keep the application doing the rendering minimized.  However, whenever Malwarebytes displays one of their intrusive messages my 3D modeling software stops all rendering to give priority to Malwarebytes.  It has literally cost me dozens of hours re-rendering already.  I cannot afford to have such a badly behaved piece of software on my PC.  No other program behaves this way.

Malwarebytes has chosen not to abide by the standards established by Microsoft for properly behaved applications, and it has resulted in a product that is unusable.  I'm not sure if it is stupidity or just plain arrogance.

 

[Glitch]

I should point out that Bryce allows me to continue rendering when the process gets interrupted, I do not have to begin again.  But DAZ Studio and Hexagon do not have this capability.

[exile360]

Wait, you're running with the program minimized and you expect the tray notification not to be displayed?  I'm sorry, but that use case doesn't make sense at all to me.  In fact, were I a professional rendering anything having to do with my work, I would suspend immediately any taxing background processes such as scheduled scans for my security software to begin with to divert all resources to my work programs.  If you did that, you wouldn't have this problem and the issue of what happens when a notification is displayed after a scheduled scan would be moot.  I honestly think that what would be more beneficial to your particular use case would be a sort of "gaming" or "quiet" mode where all background tasks like scheduled scans as well as notifications are suspended until a certain time/duration has passed or until you tell the program otherwise.  That would solve the problem with the process being suspended as well as eliminate any annoyance with the notifications being displayed when you don't want them to.

I'm not a developer, but I sincerely doubt there is any way to tell a notification to not show up when a program is minimized, because that is literally placing that process/window into the bottom/lowest priority possible.

[exile360]

In fact, as long as you're not surfing the web or doing anything else online that might pose a risk to the system as far as becoming infected goes, I'd even suggest going as far as terminating Malwarebytes and any other security software completely while rendering.  This should speed up the process of getting your work done as fewer resources are being divided among the running threads.  To do so for Malwarebytes it's really easy, all you have to do is right-click on the Malwarebytes tray icon and choose "Quit Malwarebytes" then click "Yes" to the User Account Control prompt.  That will take out all Malwarebytes processes, services, modules/DLLs and even drivers from memory, freeing up every bit of RAM and CPU time to go towards the processes that matter to you such as your work applications.

[exile360]

I just had a thought.  I believe the problem you're experiencing isn't actually about window/notification position at all.  I believe it has to do with how Windows/the software you're using to do your rendering work handles its priority of resource usage.  In Windows there are APIs that allow applications to decide whether they want to concede resources to other processes or not.  It sounds to me as though, at least when minimized (which actually makes a lot of sense, since minimizing an application puts it in the background to work on other things), your rendering application is setting itself to concede resources to any other processes, which in this case includes the Malwarebytes tray application when displaying a notification.  I would suggest trying altering the priority of either the rendering program or mbamtray.exe or both via Task Manager.  To do so, open Task Manager while both Malwarebytes as well as the rendering program are running (click Show processes from all users at the bottom if necessary to see both of them), then right-click on each and hover your mouse over Set Priority and for mbamtray.exe select Low and for your rendering application select Realtime or High and see if that makes any difference.

Hopefully that helps.  You could also try the Set Affinity... setting available in Task Manager as well which allows you to specify the core(s) (assuming you have a multi-tread/multi-core CPU, which I assume you do considering your work) for a particular process.  You can set mbamtray.exe to the last core/thread and set your rendering app to the rest or leave it set to all of them (the default) so that at least you'll know that mbamtray won't be trying to hijack the primary core/thread from the rendering application (though I'm not positive this will make any difference as the rendering app may still be configured to concede resources regardless of the thread/core being used by the other process).

[Glitch]

20 hours ago, exile360 said:

Wait, you're running with the program minimized and you expect the tray notification not to be displayed?  I'm sorry, but that use case doesn't make sense at all to me.  In fact, were I a professional rendering anything having to do with my work, I would suspend immediately any taxing background processes such as scheduled scans for my security software to begin with to divert all resources to my work programs.  If you did that, you wouldn't have this problem and the issue of what happens when a notification is displayed after a scheduled scan would be moot.  I honestly think that what would be more beneficial to your particular use case would be a sort of "gaming" or "quiet" mode where all background tasks like scheduled scans as well as notifications are suspended until a certain time/duration has passed or until you tell the program otherwise.  That would solve the problem with the process being suspended as well as eliminate any annoyance with the notifications being displayed when you don't want them to.

I'm not a developer, but I sincerely doubt there is any way to tell a notification to not show up when a program is minimized, because that is literally placing that process/window into the bottom/lowest priority possible.

It doesn't display a "tray notification."  It displays a huge honking window in the middle of my window that interrupts other processes and never goes away.  If it only displayed in the status bar tray, where it belongs, this wouldn't be an issue, but it doesn't.

I'm not going to disable my computer's security while I render.  If I didn't buy Malwarebytes I wouldn't have had this problem either.  So that is not a solution.

I was a developer for 35 years, and as a developer I'm telling you that Malwarebytes is not behaving like a Windows application should.  There is absolutely no reason Melwarebytes needs to make every message the highest priority and interrupt every other process on the PC.  That is simply bad design.  They could simply display non-interactive messages in the Status Bar tray, like where suppose to from the very beginning.

 

[Glitch]

3 hours ago, exile360 said:

I just had a thought.  I believe the problem you're experiencing isn't actually about window/notification position at all.  I believe it has to do with how Windows/the software you're using to do your rendering work handles its priority of resource usage.  In Windows there are APIs that allow applications to decide whether they want to concede resources to other processes or not.  It sounds to me as though, at least when minimized (which actually makes a lot of sense, since minimizing an application puts it in the background to work on other things), your rendering application is setting itself to concede resources to any other processes, which in this case includes the Malwarebytes tray application when displaying a notification.  I would suggest trying altering the priority of either the rendering program or mbamtray.exe or both via Task Manager.  To do so, open Task Manager while both Malwarebytes as well as the rendering program are running (click Show processes from all users at the bottom if necessary to see both of them), then right-click on each and hover your mouse over Set Priority and for mbamtray.exe select Low and for your rendering application select Realtime or High and see if that makes any difference.

Hopefully that helps.  You could also try the Set Affinity... setting available in Task Manager as well which allows you to specify the core(s) (assuming you have a multi-tread/multi-core CPU, which I assume you do considering your work) for a particular process.  You can set mbamtray.exe to the last core/thread and set your rendering app to the rest or leave it set to all of them (the default) so that at least you'll know that mbamtray won't be trying to hijack the primary core/thread from the rendering application (though I'm not positive this will make any difference as the rendering app may still be configured to concede resources regardless of the thread/core being used by the other process).

No, that is not how it works.  APIs are used in applications, not in the Operating System.  And no, my 3D modeling software does not cede any resources to any other application.  Once again, the Operating System determines the resources your application receives, not other applications.

You establish a priority for your application and the Windows operating system determines which application takes control.  In absolutely every case (except for Malwarebytes) when the user selects that application it becomes the active application and the windows for that application move to the foreground.  In the case of Malwarebytes, it always gives itself the highest priority and never allows any other application to come to the foreground.  It even places its own window on top of the Microsoft Task Manager.  That not acceptable.

 

[exile360]

I get what you're saying, however pretty much every AV I've ever used (including Microsoft's own MSE) works the same way, using high priority/top displayed, custom interactive notifications, not the standard balloon tooltips (in fact, Malwarebytes 1.x used the standard balloon tooltips and we found that in order to provide any controls/interactivity, which is required for some cases, like installing, excluding, quarantining etc., that we had to start creating custom ones).  If you do an image search for "antivirus notification" I think you'll see what I mean.  Few if any standard Windows tooltip balloon images show up even though images from a wide variety of security apps will be shown.

I think this has more to do with resources than display priority though, so perhaps setting mbamtray.exe to a lower priority might do the trick.  It doesn't serve any critical security function anyway so it won't affect your protection in doing so.  It's just the interface for the tray menu and notifications.

As for the pop-up notification, I wasn't aware that you were seeing them anywhere besides the tray.  If it is a modal dialog prompt then it does make sense that it would be more likely to display above other applications, even in full screen.  Definitely not ideal, so if this is how it works I'll certainly send feedback to the team requesting that they change it to one of Malwarebytes' standard tray notifications instead as that should help.

[KenW]

Is it possible to post a screen capture of the pop-up ? or take a picture with a camera ?

Have you uninstalled and reinstalled ?

Any other steps to correct ?

Edited October 8, 2018 by KenW

[jordancaver123]

thanks