Ccleaner, Malwarebytes and AVG anti-virus - yes or no?

[stockhausen]

I am in the process of building a system for someone else. It is based on a Gigabyte B360 HD3 Motherboard, Intel Core i7 8700 CPU, 16 GB RAM, a Samsung 970 EVO 250GB M.2 NVMe SSD and Windows 10 Home - this all works fine. The system will mostly be used for developing and maintaining Access packages as well as dealing with email and using Google, etc - no Games, no watching videos or films, etc.

However, I now come to choosing what additional software to install. I have tended in the past to install the following: ccleaner, Malwarebytes, AVG Anti-virus, Firefox, VLC for videos and music, IfranView to view and amend .JPGs, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Garmin's BaseCamp, ExactAudioCopy, MP3tag, etc..

My quandary relates to the first three (ccleaner, Malwarebytes & AVG) all of which seem to have grown and to demand ever more processing power and increasingly to "nag" you to install the latest full version whilst attempting to slip Chrome onto your system.

I am leaning towards dropping AVG and relying on Windows Defender.

Incidentally, I always include NoScript with Firefox, does this still make sense?

 

[nightmare99]

You don't need AVG/AVAST or ccleaner that's for sure (stick to defender for basic av), Malwarebytes premium is ok. Also don't need a lot of that other stuff, less is more.

 

[Stoner81]

AVG is garbage so ditch it for a start. Ccleaner is handy for clearing your temp internet files etc but that's about it, I used to use it a lot but I never do these days. PDF use SumatraPDF is it fantastic and very very small.

Stoner81.

 

[stockhausen]

You don't need AVG/AVAST or ccleaner that's for sure (stick to defender for basic av), Malwarebytes premium is ok. Also don't need a lot of that other stuff, less is more.

ccleaner is probably the one of the three that I am most inclined to keep. I just wish it didn't feel the need to carry out "Active monitoring", I am more than happy to run it as and when.

Malwarebytes Premium costs £30 per system per year and looking at their website I don't see quite what it actually achieves? Windows Defender seems to get good reports - despite being a Microsoft product.

As to VLC & ifranview, I think that they are pretty damned good (and not intrusive ). These plus BaseCamp, ExactAudioCopy and MP3tag have been requested by the user - he is already a regular user of all of them.

AVG is garbage so ditch it for a start. Ccleaner is handy for clearing your temp internet files etc but that's about it, I used to use it a lot but I never do these days. PDF use SumatraPDF is it fantastic and very very small.

Thanks, I will have a look at SumatraPDF

 

[nightmare99]

Ah didn't realise the user was already on some of that software already, thought you were just loading them for the sake of it. Edge seems to render PDFs ok these days and is baked into the OS so thats another third party bit of software you may not need. With regards to Malwarebytes Premium I would only suggest that if somebody is really wanting to pay for some protection.

 

[Stoner81]

ccleaner is probably the one of the three that I am most inclined to keep. I just wish it didn't feel the need to carry out "Active monitoring", I am more than happy to run it as and when.

Active Monitoring can be disabled within the applications settings.

Malwarebytes Premium costs £30 per system per year and looking at their website I don't see quite what it actually achieves? Windows Defender seems to get good reports - despite being a Microsoft product.

The new one is designed to replace regular antivirus suites, they are touting as the "all inclusive suite" for what I can tell.

As to VLC & ifranview, I think that they are pretty damned good (and not intrusive ). These plus BaseCamp, ExactAudioCopy and MP3tag have been requested by the user - he is already a regular user of all of them.

Never heard of BaseCamp or ExactAudioCopy but will check them out so thanks for that

Thanks, I will have a look at SumatraPDF

I think bledd from here put me on to it iirc it's brilliant!

Stoner81.

 

[Iron-man]

Windows defender isn't bad and Malwarebytes is good as well

 

[sideways14a]

I run Malwarebytes premium and Defender along with other such stuff as adblock and pihole on the lan.
Keeps everything out for not a lot of outlay - Malwarebytes is great and the always on scanner is worth the £s

 

[VermilionChaos]

I've been leaning more towards just leaving Defender on for the AV and then leaving them the option to either get a paid version or anything else. I leave their system as clean and quick as possible then let them slow them down.

 

[stockhausen]

Reading a review on Windows Defender, it is somewhat inflexible (it allegedly lacks deep customization options whatever that means) and detects 96.3% of the newest threats against an industry average of 99%. Hwoever, that is what I will go for, the customer can of course replace it with anything he chooses.

I will give MalwareBytes another go although I will disable Active Monitoring from within the applications settings.

I do try to leave built systems "clean, stripped-down and tidy" before delivery

 

[CaptainCrash]

Incidentally, I always include NoScript with Firefox, does this still make sense?

I wouldn't install NoScript on a machine I was building for someone else - it'll break too many websites unless they already have a pretty good grasp of how it works and what it does, in which case they could install it themselves if they need it.

 

[Elevon]

Bitdefender free version and CCleaner is what I use. Bitdefender mainly due to better detection rate then Microsoft Defender and also lighter on resources.

 

[Glanza]

Defender is more than enough,
It's the browser defence that will stop most issues, Ublock Origin will generally stop most people getting infections as it removes the adverts and other bits and bobs.

 

[Destination]

Reading a review on Windows Defender, it is somewhat inflexible (it allegedly lacks deep customization options whatever that means) and detects 96.3% of the newest threats against an industry average of 99%. Hwoever, that is what I will go for, the customer can of course replace it with anything he chooses.

I will give MalwareBytes another go although I will disable Active Monitoring from within the applications settings.

I do try to leave built systems "clean, stripped-down and tidy" before delivery

Basically cutting off your balls before trying to impregnate something.
Either install it and leave it actively monitoring, or don't bother.

I find MWB premium excellent at stopping popups, shutting down popups which redirect to pay sites activating clickbait and nonsense windows.
Exactly the sort of thing one finds when browsing porn.
It interferes and stops issues developing, or stops the user having to close windows themselves.
This is exactly what protection on and from the internet is for.

So either go premium and leave it active, or don't bother at all, as your 'clean stripped down version' isn't likely to have a user who will run it when required, or even bother to keep it up to date, if it isn't automatically running. Bar one issue they had some time ago, they don't tend to resource hog in the slightest.
This coupled with windows inbuild protection should be sufficient.

Next on any list would be a VPN.

 

[WantoN]

I highly rate Ccleaner and Spybot, I turn off monitoring. I’d also recommend Spybot Anti-Beacon.

And get some decent backup software. I use EaseUS ToDo Workstation, Home version is good too. A lot of people like Veeam Endpoint and Macroum Reflect also.

And echoing the above, a VPN. I use PIA but i don’t think it’s the best, software is clunky and delays are heavy even though throughput is excellent. I can game on it ok.

 

[sideways14a]

If the virus/malware app is not doing scans for itself in the background and instead waiting for a user to activate it... then it will never be used.
99.9% of all pc's i see with a run-to-scan app like the non paid for malwarebytes never... and i really do mean never get ran.

The average user is so clueless about security it doesnt get done even after trying to batter it into there heads when giving the now clean box back. They never ever will scan machines themselves.

 

[Dynix]

I use CCleaner (does a scheduled clean every morning) on both PC/Laptop. Also have Malwarebytes installed, but it doesn't pick up anything that Windows Defender doesn't these days, so I can probably get rid of that - common sense goes a long way for that kind of thing anyway.

 

[WantoN]

If the virus/malware app is not doing scans for itself in the background and instead waiting for a user to activate it... then it will never be used.
99.9% of all pc's i see with a run-to-scan app like the non paid for malwarebytes never... and i really do mean never get ran.

The average user is so clueless about security it doesnt get done even after trying to batter it into there heads when giving the now clean box back. They never ever will scan machines themselves.

I don’t understand why people would consider Spybot or Ccleaner a first line of defence. I run a paid for AV and maintain as granular control as I can; that’s not enough in my opinion.

For me the very best defence is a robust backup scheme. I separate data across multiple drives, backup to multiple drives, use redundancy backups and plan to use a NAS with write acces only given to my backup software.

There isn’t a perfect solution. And there’s no one stop shop. My critical softwares for protection and maintenance are :

• Paid Anti Virus (whatever scores best that year)
• Glasswire Firewall
• EaseUs ToDo Workstation/Home Backup
• Application blocker / whitelister
• Spybot Anti-Beacon
• Ccleaner - No monitoring active, weekly scan
• Spybot - No monitoring active, monthly scan
• Firefox - with all privacy plugins
• VPN

I use a few more but any new install will always have the above. And you’re right, the amount of people I’ve rescued (or failed to) plenty of people who have literally no protection, or never run it. It’s like having a car, driving it till it dies and complains you have to service it or fill it with petrol.