Malwarebytes Free seems to mess with Avast's Web Shield

[Dinobot2]

There are websites that are blacklisted by Avast, and when you try to connect to them it'll stop the website from loading and you'll get a pop up from Avast telling you that they blocked the connection.

One thing I have noticed is that after having Malwarebytes Free open, even when closing it right after from the system tray, going to the blacklisted website doesn't produce the Web shield alert from Avast. The website still doesn't connect but it loads slowly. However, when I use the Eicar.org test website, the web shield alert still works properly.

It's only when I go to run an Avast repair from its Apps & Features uninstall Menu that the alert on the blacklisted website appears again.

I have run this experiment a few times to see that there is some interaction with Malwarebytes and Avast that is causing this.

I'm not sure if this is on Avast's side or MB's side, and i'm going to post this on Avast's forum as well. Just thought i'd bring it to attention in case anyone else uses both.

Edited January 15 by Dinobot2

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[Porthos]

13 minutes ago, Dinobot2 said:

after having Malwarebytes Free open, even when closing it right after

Are you fully closing it?

MB free should not affect anything anyway.

But just in case have you added exclusions?

I would recommend creating exclusions between Malwarebytes and Your AV to help prevent any possible conflicts or performance issues.  Please add the items listed in this support article to Your AV 's allow list(s)/trust list(s)/exclusion list(s), particularly for any of its real-time protection components and likewise add Your AV 's program folder(s) (likely located under C:\Program Files and/or C:\Program Files (x86)) to Malwarebytes' Allow List using the method described under the Allow a file or folder section of this support article and do the same for its primary data folder which is likely located under C:\ProgramData (you may need to show hidden files and folders to see it).

 

[Dinobot2]

I am clicking "Quit Malwarebytes" from the system tray, yes. But even if I wasn't, it shouldn't get in the way. Since there is no real-time protection with Malwarebytes Free

I've noticed that just now, with Malwarebytes not being open after a repair, the Avast web alert for that blacklisted site is intermittent with it popping up or not. So I might have spoken too soon. Plus I ran that test with the blacklisted website (not eicar) yesterday after updating my version of MB with the offline installer. So perhaps it's just something with that website or Avast's shield detecting it.

I will look into adding exclusions, though when I manually scan the Program Files and ProgramData folder for each app in the other (so scanning Avast with MB and vice versa) it produces clean results every time.

Edited January 15 by Dinobot2

[Porthos]

Just now, Dinobot2 said:

I am clicking "Quit Malwarebytes" from the system tray, yes. But even if I wasn't, it shouldn't get in the way. Since there is no real-time protection with Malwarebytes Free

You are correct it should not.

1 minute ago, Dinobot2 said:

I will look into adding exclusions.

Never hurts to do so.

[Dinobot2]

I think you posted right when I made my edit.

 

3 minutes ago, Dinobot2 said:

I will look into adding exclusions, though when I manually scan the Program Files and ProgramData folder for each app in the other (so scanning Avast with MB and vice versa) it produces clean results every time.