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Re: [OM] (OM) OT Malwarebytes

Subject: Re: [OM] (OM) OT Malwarebytes
From: Jim Nichols <jhnichols@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2014 16:59:00 -0500
Hi Moose,
I know nothing of Malwarebytes, but, in my transition from an 8-yr old machine running XP to a new one running Windows 7, I was my own worst enemy. I wanted to use the same tools for photo work that I had used in the past, and set out to download this software. I tried to get current versions of Neat Image, FocusMagic, and a BW converter that I had found useful. In this process, I stumbled into downloads of "bundles", not individual programs, and got a lot of invasive, unwanted software. It took me several weeks to clean up the mess. Now, the only one I see is a popup ad each time I start the machine, which I immediately close. I looked into deleting it, and found that people had to resort to a lot of specific registry edits, which I refuse to do.

We need to be careful what we seek on the web! :-(

Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA

On 6/9/2014 4:39 PM, Moose wrote:
Association does not causality make.

But I do find it interesting that the two listees who report the most computer troubles are also the most vocal about distrusting newer software/OSs, the internet, and so on, and proud to use technologically ancient equipment.

In my years of using PCs, from the first XP, I don't think I've has as many woes in total as Brian and Chris T report in a year or two.

As to Malwarebytes, Brian, Chuck's ideas for checking the equipment sound useful. But I'm not sure you understand what it does and it appears you may be using it incorrectly.

In order to cause any trouble, stuff on your HD must get into memory and start being executed by the CPU. Thus, MWB, like other virus/malware scanners, defaults to checking only executable files and some kinds of macros, in the places where they are usually found.

Running it on a drive and/or directories with only image and data files is simply a waste of time. Even if something malicious hides stuff in one, if the baddie is eliminated, there is still no danger.

I run MWB on the old laptop Carol uses, running XP, and have had no trouble with it.

IMO, 7, and I presume 8, are much more secure than XP.

Your concerns about what you see as unwarranted HD activity strikes me as excessive. There are many programs that do legitimate things to accomplish the purposes for which they are installed in down time for other apps.

A simple example is the indexing function of Windoze Explorer. Directories may be set so that they have an index, so that searches are very fast. The indexing is done when there is nothing else using machine cycles and the HD, so that it won't impact other uses. By default, the Documents, perhaps Downloads and other directories are indexed. This may be turned on and off, both globally and by directory. Personally, I have it turned on for some other directories.

There are other programs that work similarly, including some antivirus/malware apps, scanning in background. The idea that you can know everything going on and judge when HD use is not right seems to me naive in the Windoze world.

Clean Moose

On 6/7/2014 2:01 PM, Chuck Norcutt wrote:
Check to see if your drive is a "SMART" drive. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.#Self-tests> A SMART drive is capable of running self-tests to analyze its own performance. But its self-testing should not be so intrusive as to interfere with real work.

The run times you report seem excessive for the amount of data involved. It's possible your hard drive is undergoing soft failures... getting read errors which are ultimately recoverable after one or more retries. That's the sort of thing that SMART should be able to detect.

However, if any of these drives are not internal but are connected via USB 2.0 that may explain your speed problem. USB 2.0 is truly slow.

Chuck Norcutt


On 6/7/2014 2:56 PM, bj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Just a cautionary note.
I have been suspicious for a while of hard drive activity that I could see no call for, so in addition to having Avast antivirus running I installed Malwarebytes to check for the sort of malware they specialise in. It took more than a day to check my C drive ( which is small) and THREE AND A HALF days to check my main data disk which has less than 200,000 files and has just 168 gb used. Just now it started up again despite me (thinking had deferred the next scan for about a month) trying to avoid those excesses. In doing so it greatly paralysed the machine.
I have just uninstalled it !!  I can reinstall it if I see a need.
Brian




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