mbam more smarter.

[Guest name cool]

For the faster scanner, suggested the following.

First, for the best and fastest results of the scan at all ,should the amendment how scanner working on the scan! And change some of the properties here, for example, add this property to Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware before the start of scan computer systems and the Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware will automatically clean up temporary Internet files Before running the scanner and so we get the faster scan than ever before.

[goldhound]

That would be a different program and a waste of space on THE premium anti malware program. Best to just use CCleaner first or more often.

[screen317]

I think an option to automatically clean Temp files before the scan would be fine. We'll see what others have to say though.

[DarkSnakeKobra]

That's not a bad idea. Can be used to removed infections that are in the temp folder. Spybot has had that for sometime so I'm okay with it.

[goldhound]

The emphasis has always been on "anti malware". Unless MBAM is gearing up to become a different and more complete security solution along with competing for the "easy button" applications i would be mildly surprised to see this. So what is it going to be? Any of the principles going to chime in?

[Firefox]

Well this could work for us and against us....

On one side it will make the scans quicker as it would not have to scan all those temp files....

On the other side, depending on the computer and how much trash is out there, it may take a bit for Malwarebytes to start scanning cause its cleaning trash, so folks would complain and think that the program is locked up....

[malware destroyer]

Well this could work for us and against us....

On one side it will make the scans quicker as it would not have to scan all those temp files....

On the other side, depending on the computer and how much trash is out there, it may take a bit for Malwarebytes to start scanning cause its cleaning trash, so folks would complain and think that the program is locked up....

i agree on this but there could be a window to say please clean out temp files to help make the scan go as quick as possible or some thing but im abit 50-50 on this though

[screen317]

On the other side, depending on the computer and how much trash is out there, it may take a bit for Malwarebytes to start scanning cause its cleaning trash, so folks would complain and think that the program is locked up....

Yes, it would take some time to clean the temp files, but it would be spending that time scanning through them and not deleting them if they were still present..

[exile360]

I'll chime in real quick. While I can certainly see the merits of doing so for the sake of quicker scan times, I know of at least one reason not to do this. MBAM is strongest when it catches malware in the act so to speak, i.e., when it's active and installed. This would actually hurt MBAM's ability to kill some infections believe it or not, and may simply cause certain infections to simply respawn (often with random new filenames). That's because some infections have other components that play watchdog, and when one of the pieces is deleted (like a file in a Temp location), the other component that was guarding it takes action, respawning the file by a different name and possibly even a different location. That's not the only reason though, and without going into too much detail, (I cannot reveal the nature of MBAM's inner workings) it's the same reason that we recommend scanning when Windows is booted normally and not in Safe Mode when possible.

Suffice it to say, MBAM does its best work when it has a chance to see all of the files doing what they do, that's when it's most likely to be successful in erradicating an infection (or infections) completely.

That being said, if you've got literally gigabytes of temp data that has built up over a long time, then I would recommend running a temp file cleaner like CCleaner or ATF Cleaner for the sake of reduced scan times, but that's an extreme case. Most of the time, normal temp file buildup doesn't increase MBAM's scan times by a large margin (generally it's a matter of mere seconds).

[sho-dan]

Good read, exile360.

[noknojon]

Quote = exile360 -

Suffice it to say, MBAM does its best work when it has a chance to see all of the files doing what they do, that's when it's most likely to be successful in erradicating an infection (or infections) completely.

This is why I need to keep telling people that a MBAM scan in safe mode is usually just to produce a log, and will not remove "most" infections -

Saying that I still run CCleaner first most times prior to a scan (Just as a habit) -

[Firefox]

Good read, exile360.

+1

[Guest name cool]

Waiting for more....

[IDKWatMNShouldBe]

Hmm, I never really made a program before, but can and what if MBAM has 2 scanners scanning at the same time?

I know it will use more cpu, but if you want to get it twice as fast done, it's worth it!

If you don't get what I mean by 2 scanners, I mean that instead of 1 scanner scanning the whole computer, why not 1 of the scanners scan 1/2 of the computer and the other 1/2 the other scanner will scan at the same time?

I don't know if this is possible, but that's my feedback.

[IDKWatMNShouldBe]

Well this could work for us and against us....

On one side it will make the scans quicker as it would not have to scan all those temp files....

On the other side, depending on the computer and how much trash is out there, it may take a bit for Malwarebytes to start scanning cause its cleaning trash, so folks would complain and think that the program is locked up....

If MBAM automatically removes temp files before scan, and the user does scans a couple times a week, I am sure that cleaning the temp files won't take longer then a couple of seconds.

I hope what I said is actually true...

[mountaintree16]

I'll chime in real quick.

Thank you for the extremely helpful and insightful information

[exile360]

Hmm, I never really made a program before, but can and what if MBAM has 2 scanners scanning at the same time?

I know it will use more cpu, but if you want to get it twice as fast done, it's worth it!

Unfortunately, if we took such an approach it wouldn't speed things up. In our testing, the current most limiting factor is hard disk access time. Having 2 scanners running concurrently would only increase the time it would take since they'd both be trying to read info from the HDD and they'd be fighting for access since they'd each be trying to query data from different sectors on the drive. Incidentally, that's the same reason that MBAM scans much faster the second time around (as long as it's before reboot) because of disk caching, it reads data much more quickly because it's already "fetched" so to speak so it doesn't need to re-read it from the disk.

[IDKWatMNShouldBe]

Unfortunately, if we took such an approach it wouldn't speed things up. In our testing, the current most limiting factor is hard disk access time. Having 2 scanners running concurrently would only increase the time it would take since they'd both be trying to read info from the HDD and they'd be fighting for access since they'd each be trying to query data from different sectors on the drive. Incidentally, that's the same reason that MBAM scans much faster the second time around (as long as it's before reboot) because of disk caching, it reads data much more quickly because it's already "fetched" so to speak so it doesn't need to re-read it from the disk.

Thanks for the explanation!

[exile360]

You're welcome

We actually experimented with various things to improve on scan times, and our findings were that in almost all cases, the one factor that slows down the scan most is reading files from the hard drive so as SSD's become more prominent, I suspect scan times will drop dramatically (we already have couple of staff members who use SSD's and their scan times are incredibly low).

[IDKWatMNShouldBe]

Okay okay. I THINK I GOT AN IDEA!

Iv'e seen an anti-virus, I forgot which one, where you can customize how much cpu to use while scanning.

If you let it use alot of cpu, ofcourse a faster scan. Less cpu, a slower scan.

Why can't MBAM have that? If one of my feedback ever comes true, I'll feel so happy!

[exile360]

Having it use more CPU would likely result in a scan time that was approximately the same, reducing the amount of CPU would probably make the scan take a bit longer. Like I said, the biggest factor in scan times is reading from the hard drive, not the amount of CPU.

[1PW]

Okay okay. I THINK I GOT AN IDEA!

Iv'e seen an anti-virus, I forgot which one, where you can customize how much cpu to use while scanning.

If you let it use alot of cpu, ofcourse a faster scan. Less cpu, a slower scan.

Why can't MBAM have that? If one of my feedback ever comes true, I'll feel so happy!

Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) has this feature for one.

[IDKWatMNShouldBe]

Having it use more CPU would likely result in a scan time that was approximately the same, reducing the amount of CPU would probably make the scan take a bit longer. Like I said, the biggest factor in scan times is reading from the hard drive, not the amount of CPU.

Then how does and why do some other anti-viruses have this feature? I know that MBAM isn't an anti-virus, but I don't get why MBAM cant.

Not only MSE has it, there's another anti-virus that has it.

[ThreeGuser]

Unfortunately, if we took such an approach it wouldn't speed things up. In our testing, the current most limiting factor is hard disk access time. Having 2 scanners running concurrently would only increase the time it would take since they'd both be trying to read info from the HDD and they'd be fighting for access since they'd each be trying to query data from different sectors on the drive. Incidentally, that's the same reason that MBAM scans much faster the second time around (as long as it's before reboot) because of disk caching, it reads data much more quickly because it's already "fetched" so to speak so it doesn't need to re-read it from the disk.

I always disable the antivirus' real-time protection while performing a scan with MBAM (e.g. quick scan or full scan). This definitely improves the scan speed a while.

Earlier today I performed a quick scan two times while not rebooting and I noticed the second scan was more than 50% faster than the first one.

I think that MBAM is so good (so perfect) that it has pretty much nothing to change The only things I would like to see changed (added) are password-protection that prevents people change program's settings and auto-quarantine.

[exile360]

Then how does and why do some other anti-viruses have this feature? I know that MBAM isn't an anti-virus, but I don't get why MBAM cant.

Not only MSE has it, there's another anti-virus that has it.

Correct, like I said, we could add it, but increasing the amount of CPU used would make no difference in MBAM's scan times, reducing the CPU usage would increase the scan time, which may be useful for users that are multi-tasking during scans and want more CPU available for other processes (which is also why AV's like MSE and Kaspersky have this feature, so that you can reduce the amount of CPU used so you can do other things more easily with your PC while scans are running).

I always disable the antivirus' real-time protection while performing a scan with MBAM (e.g. quick scan or full scan). This definitely improves the scan speed a while.

Disabling your AV can help, especially if you haven't already set exclusions for Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware in your AV.

Earlier today I performed a quick scan two times while not rebooting and I noticed the second scan was more than 50% faster than the first one.

Yes, that's because of disk caching. You'll also notice that on the second (or third, fourth, fifth etc.) scan (without rebooting) that there is much less HDD activity, thus allowing the scan to be substantially faster .

I think that MBAM is so good (so perfect) that it has pretty much nothing to change The only things I would like to see changed (added) are password-protection that prevents people change program's settings and auto-quarantine.

The password option is being considered for a future version. Auto-quarantine already exists for scheduled scans and command line scans with the PRO version, but there is no such option for the protection module (though it is also being considered).