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Why do people recommend MBAM over SAS?

Which is your favorite spyware/trojan scanner besides your Antivirus that you run?

  • SUPERAntiSpyware Pro

  • Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

  • Spybot S & D

  • Ad-Aware

  • Emsisoft Anti-Malware

  • Other, please mention in the thread

Results are only viewable after voting.
Berryracer

Berryracer

Platinum Member
I don't get it? I have Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 so I know I am protected against viruses. Occasionally, I run SUPERAntiSpyware Pro and it always picks up about 10-20 harmful/tracking cookies then prompts me to remove them and reboot (don't know why the heck does it need to reboot to remove cookies but oh well
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)

Now in all the times that I have used Malwarebytes AntiMalware, it has NEVER EVER caught anything. So I run SAS most of the time.

People tell me to use both but I think that's just overkill and a waste of time since MBAM never catches anything and ignored the harmful cookies.

So why do 80% of the people I know online and the forums that I visit, always recommend MBAM as the program of choice next to your Antivirus for removing Malware?

It's either some people are blind to see that SAS goes the extra mile to remove the harmful cookies or I am missing something here
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Please explain to teh meh
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"harmful cookies" is a nebulous term. Few are truly harmful. It's mostly ad trackers that monitor your movements. While sub-optimal, I wouldn't call them harmful. Block 3rd party cookies in your browser, and that should be good enough. When I was on Windows I never had malware issues. I'd run the products every so often, but they never found anything. I used Avira free, and the occasional Malwarebytes scan(also the free version).
 
lxskllr said:
"harmful cookies" is a nebulous term. Few are truly harmful. It's mostly ad trackers that monitor your movements. While sub-optimal, I wouldn't call them harmful. Block 3rd party cookies in your browser, and that should be good enough. When I was on Windows I never had malware issues. I'd run the products every so often, but they never found anything. I used Avira free, and the occasional Malwarebytes scan(also the free version).
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Right, they may not be so harmful like you said, but then again, MBAM doesn't seem to do anything better than SAS here...so why do most people swear by it?

While the cookies may not be that harmful....2 things...

1) Still, even if they may not be a real threat, why not remove them? doesn't do any harm.

2) I tried disabling 3rd party cookies like you once advised me, some sites stopped functioning correctly (can't remember which one(s) now)
 
Matrix Leader said:
Right, they may not be so harmful like you said, but then again, MBAM doesn't seem to do anything better than SAS here...so why do most people swear by it?
Click to expand...

Maybe just familiarity. It works very well on serious threats, so that's what I use. If I had a severe infection, I'd likely run both. I guess it just gained more traction early on.
While the cookies may not be that harmful....2 things...

1) Still, even if they may not be a real threat, why not remove them? doesn't do any harm.

2) I tried disabling 3rd party cookies like you once advised me, some sites stopped functioning correctly (can't remember which one(s) now)
Click to expand...


1 relies on 2.

You will occasionally get site breakeage by disabling 3rd party cookies. What I do is decide if I really want to use a site that wants me to enable them. If not, I don't go back. If I really want to use them, and trust their setup, I'll whitelist the cookies they want to set.

By blocking 3rd party cookies, you don't get much to clean up after, but yea, it doesn't harm anything to get rid of them. You don't need cookies at all. They provide convenience at the expense of privacy/security. It's up to the individual to decide where the balance point is.
 
lxskllr said:
By blocking 3rd party cookies, you don't get much to clean up after, but yea, it doesn't harm anything to get rid of them. You don't need cookies at all. They provide convenience at the expense of privacy/security. It's up to the individual to decide where the balance point is.
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Good points raised there.

But here is where I need cookies, as soon as I install FF after a system restore via Acronis True Image, I visit all my bookmarks (includes many forums and file sharing sites) then LastPAss automatically logs me in to each one of those sites, so I guess the cookie is needed here to store my login info so I can access the site anytime later while still being logged in.

I also disable cleaning the cookies from CCleaner because I don't like to relogin everytime I visit a site...

How do you personally go about this?
 
Matrix Leader said:
Good points raised there.

But here is where I need cookies, as soon as I install FF after a system restore via Acronis True Image, I visit all my bookmarks (includes many forums and file sharing sites) then LastPAss automatically logs me in to each one of those sites, so I guess the cookie is needed here to store my login info so I can access the site anytime later while still being logged in.

I also disable cleaning the cookies from CCleaner because I don't like to relogin everytime I visit a site...

How do you personally go about this?
Click to expand...

I keep cookies for sites I frequent. That retains my login data and stuff like that. I only frequent sites I trust, so I'm ok with that. If I follow a link to a site I think is shady, I'll go into my cookies and delete the cookie for that site.

Third party cookies are generally used by ad services. That's why I turn that off. They're also used by cross site logins, and for comment submittal on blogs. I'm not completely comfortable being linked to multiple sites simultaneously. It's perhaps a bit of paranoia, but it's easy to create a spaghetti nest of cross links that someone could exploit if they took the time. It's just a bit too abstract for my tastes.
 
lxskllr said:
I keep cookies for sites I frequent. That retains my login data and stuff like that. I only frequent sites I trust, so I'm ok with that. If I follow a link to a site I think is shady, I'll go into my cookies and delete the cookie for that site.

Third party cookies are generally used by ad services. That's why I turn that off. They're also used by cross site logins, and for comment submittal on blogs. I'm not completely comfortable being linked to multiple sites simultaneously. It's perhaps a bit of paranoia, but it's easy to create a spaghetti nest of cross links that someone could exploit if they took the time. It's just a bit too abstract for my tastes.
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From what was said above. I still see that SAS is better than MBAM overall as they both are good at removing malware, only one does a bit extra about the cookies, which isn't really that big of a thread, but good to remove.

I can't for the life of me though, figure out why in the past SAS just removed those harmful cookies, and now it asks me to reboot everytime I remove them even though Firefox is NOT running 🙄 A bit overkill if you ask me
 
Matrix Leader said:
Now in all the times that I have used Malwarebytes AntiMalware, it has NEVER EVER caught anything.
Click to expand...

It sounds like you are quite the novice at virus and spyware removal. I do this shit for a living and I can tell you that Malwarebytes is an excellent tool for catching things and in my opinion is the best tool that can be run within an infected system. Don't get me wrong, Superantispyware and Spybot are excellent tools too. Many rootkits however still require the use of bootable linux based scanners. Everyone is going to have their favorite tonics, but to say one has never caught anything just goes to show that you might not have that much experience with infected systems. I am sure you keep your personal systems clean and secure if you are using Kaspersky.
 
In my opinion, MBAM is decent. It is not perfect either in that a system obviously infected can be declared clean by MBAM. On the other hand to me, SAS does even less than MBAM.
 
OP,
It appears that you have never cleaned a badly infected computer. You need an arsenal of AV programs, not just 1, to clean an infected computer, i.e., Rkill, TDSSkiller, MBAM, HitmanPro, Combofix, HijackThis, and others.

Start with John's Malware Guide to learn the basics. http://www.elitekiller.com/malware.htm and Mechbgon's security guide http://www.mechbgon.com/build/security2.html

My least concern when cleaning a computer is cookies. I have found that MBAM does a much better job at finding and deleting viruses than SAS. I don't even use SAS anymore.
 
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boochi said:
It sounds like you are quite the novice at virus and spyware removal. I do this shit for a living and I can tell you that Malwarebytes is an excellent tool for catching things and in my opinion is the best tool that can be run within an infected system. Don't get me wrong, Superantispyware and Spybot are excellent tools too. Many rootkits however still require the use of bootable linux based scanners. Everyone is going to have their favorite tonics, but to say one has never caught anything just goes to show that you might not have that much experience with infected systems. I am sure you keep your personal systems clean and secure if you are using Kaspersky.
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Very well said, you have a point there about me using Kaspersky and probably that's why I never found anything with MBAM. (which shouldn't mean it's a bad program)
 
Blain said:
Did you use the free version or paid version?
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the free version. I don't mind paying but that's not the point. I have paid for my SAS Pro where they had a special offer a few months back for a Lifetime subscription for only 29.99 rather than 29.99 every year. I still have that license but found myself not using it since it causes my computer to become slower since I have Kaspersky Internet Security running. According to the Kaspersky forums they advice you not to ever run 2 real time security programs such as an antivirus + MBAM or SAS Pro and I think they have a point. Now if I were using some of the inferior antivirus programs such as AVG (POS) or MSE (another POS) program ,then I WOULD have considered purchasing the license for MBAM Pro but I see no need for it since I have Kaspersky Internet Security
 
Blain said:
The free MBAM doesn't support active protection, it wouldn't catch anything in realtime.

Have you thought about simply running your browser sandboxed?
Click to expand...

I think he was talking about when he ran a scan manually.

In my experience (and my friends/family seem to be uber awesome at picking up really nasty nasties) both of them are equally good. I've had MBAM catch things SAS didn't and vice versa...so I'll use them both. One time I knew there was something massively wrong with the computer because web searches weren't working right sometimes it would always divert to some other random sites. So I ran scan after scan and finally windows itself actually ID'd the culprit, sort of. So I got info on that nasty, and ended up having to use tdsskiller to remove it (but after stripping all references to manufacturer and renaming it something totally benign). That was the smart most icky one I've ever dealt with.
 
I honestly still think that SAS is the program to choose if you want to choose between the two because it also catches the tracking cookies.
 
Matrix Leader said:
I honestly still think that SAS is the program to choose if you want to choose between the two because it also catches the tracking cookies.
Click to expand...

That would depend entirely on application..if you mostly have a clean system, aside the those dubious cookies, then sure...maybe. Why not? If you have a system that's totally borked cause it's got tons of malware, just one isn't going to be enough usually, and SAS isn't infallible, it misses things too.
 
atrus.eoa said:
That would depend entirely on application..if you mostly have a clean system, aside the those dubious cookies, then sure...maybe. Why not? If you have a system that's totally borked cause it's got tons of malware, just one isn't going to be enough usually, and SAS isn't infallible, it misses things too.
Click to expand...

Yes very good point you have there. For a clan system running a good AV, SAS is the better choice but for a highly infected system MBAM is teh way t0 g0

I am running Kaspersky Internet Security FTW




No links to your website


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director
 
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