Tens of thousands of queries to telemetry.malwarebytes when opted out

[Xushi]

Dear Developers,

So I've noticed that some of the top offenders on my Pihole comes from requests for telemetry.malwarebytes.com. Almost 30,000 queries in the last 30 days.

Reading about it here, it says we can disable that

I understand the need for those who opt in, however, I have that option disabled since the day I installed Malwarebytes, yet, it's still firing out these requests. 

And FYI, this post here says the free app phones once a day.

however, my pihole shows constant queries every 5-10 minutes. Again, this is with the sharing option disabled.

So.. what's going on here? Why is it that it's firing every few minutes, and why when I specifically opted out of sending such data? 

Thanks.

 

 

[Porthos]

11 minutes ago, Xushi said:

And FYI, this post here says the free app phones once a day.

In that post if you block it it will be more frequent checks

Quote

It will normally be sent only once per day... but if the connection fails, it will retry periodically. I suspect that, because there is a network connection, but the connection to that server is being blocked, the software is probably seeing this as a temporary issue and the retries are more frequent.

 

Edited November 16, 2022 by Porthos

[Xushi]

Ah, thanks for that clarification. I failed to realise by retrying periodically, it meant that much.

That aside, why is it still attempting to send telemetry related data if I've opted out?

Ta.

[Porthos]

2 minutes ago, Xushi said:

why is it still attempting to send telemetry related data if I've opted out?

It still connects and needs to do so but it does exclude this data. So I would allow it thru the pi hole.

Quote

 

The data that is not sent when you turn off that option is:

• Data on protection-related activity (scans, RTP events) and any detections
  • This data does not include copies of files that were detected
• Data on how you interact with the app... ie, buttons you click, etc
  • This helps us understand how people interact with the app

 

[Xushi]

Thanks! 

I think this answers all the questions :) I would've hoped there would be an option to also opt out of the above mentioned data that's sent out, but that's for another topic.. 

Have a good day.

[Porthos]

1 minute ago, Xushi said:

I would've hoped there would be an option to also opt out of the above mentioned data that's sent out, but that's for another topic.. 

When you turn off telemetry in the program it does turn off "opt out" of the sending of the data mentioned above. But other required data is sent out.

[Xushi]

Sorry again (multitasking). Yep makes sense :)

Ta.

[treed]

You can find some more detailed information about how all this works here: