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It never hurts to have a friend to watch your back, whether in the real world or online. This is arguably even more important online, where a single misplaced click can expose you to all sorts of cyber threats. We've all encountered spam, sketchy websites, or suspicious hyperlinks. That's why it's important to have a reliable antivirus program, and few do the job better than Malwarebytes.

For all of May (and a little bit of June), I used the Malwarebytes Ultimate plan as my primary security suite. It was remarkably quick to identify and block threats, often intervening before I even realized something was wrong. Never before have I felt so confident browsing the Internet.

Before this, I used Windows Defender and the free version of Avast. In the future I may need to purchase a subscription.

Offers are selected by the CNET Group sales team and may be unrelated to this article.

Simple but robust

Malwarebytes is about as easy to set up as any software I've used. Download the installer, run it, log in and you're ready to go in minutes. Once installed, you are greeted by a clean and elegant user interface. The developers have done a good job organizing the layout into clearly defined sections. It's easy to find what you're looking for.

The software has many features, so I will mainly focus on the key aspects that made the biggest impression.

One of the first things you'll see is the dashboard, the central hub of the app. Here you have quick access to some tools such as system scanner, VPN and Trusted Advisor. The latter provides a security score which reflects the quality of protection of your PC and offers recommendations for improving it.

Initially, Trusted Advisor revealed that my system was not very secure. As you can see in the image below, I was at 49, which is considered poor.

Clicking on Boost Your Score took me to a page highlighting the specific settings I needed to adjust to improve my PC's security. He recommended that I enable stricter User Account Control settings in Windows so that I would receive notifications whenever an application tried to make changes to my system. After making this adjustment, my security score increased to a more secure 83.

On the left side of the interface are four additional sections: Privacy, Identity, Tools, and Scam Guard. The Privacy tab contains settings that govern how Malwarebytes works online. Here you can customize settings like whether third-party content is displayed in the Windows 11 Start menu and whether promotional content is displayed in notifications.

The Tools tab provides quick access to system management controls where you configure which applications appear at startup and the strength of your firewall. Scam Guard is the suite's AI-powered assistant. It provides detailed but easy-to-understand answers regarding the security of the service. It can even analyze screenshots of suspicious emails to determine if they are scams.

To see how well it worked, I tested Scam Guard using a screenshot of an email that I already knew was fraudulent. The AI correctly identified it as a fraudulent fee advance scam, also known as the Nigerian Prince scam. What impressed me was that the AI explained how it came to this conclusion and even outlined the steps I should take next.

The Identity tab was the most interesting for me. It houses the suite's identity verification tools.

At the top of this page, you can enter an email address to see if it appears in any known data breaches. If a breach instance is detected, Malwarebytes will indicate when and where it occurred. Clicking the Manage Identity button opens a browser-based dashboard where you can access identity theft protection.

Here you can enter additional information to improve monitoring and receive alerts if your data is involved in future breaches or suspicious activity is discovered.

Personal Data Remover is the other half of the Identity tab. As the name suggests, it removes personal information from data broker websites. It is very similar in form and function to PrivacyBee. During testing, Malwarebytes found dozens of cases where my information appeared online and began automatically submitting removal requests.

Progress is displayed via status indicators, so you can see which requests are still in progress and which have been completed.

Although I liked Personal Data Remover, the tool is not perfect. It sometimes produced false positives, highlighting records belonging to someone with a similar name. You can let the AI know it's not you by expanding a recording and selecting Not You.

During its initial analysis, Malwarebytes identified 22 instances of my information appearing on data broker sites (the other seven were false positives). In comparison, PrivacyBee discovered many more records in its first search, eventually reaching hundreds once additional personal information was added. Malwarebytes could not exceed 30.

What makes this notable is that the email address I used with Malwarebytes appeared in 12 known data breaches, while the email address I used with PrivacyBee was only exposed in eight. Malwarebytes data removal is not as comprehensive as services that specialize in it.

Stop threats

Now, how does Malwarebytes work as an antivirus? Alright. It ran silently in the background, using minimal CPU resources and blocking threats before they became problems. In several cases, malware bypassed the protections built into my browser and provided by my ISP, only to be stopped by the software.

When I looked at Malwarebytes' historical report, I found a long list of blocked threats, including risky software, Trojans, and phishing attempts that I didn't even know existed. It was like having a digital guardian angel.

If you want to hear another perspective on the effectiveness of Malwarebytes, MRG Effitas, an independent organization that evaluates the effectiveness of security software, released a report testing eight leading antiviruses. Effitas wanted to see how effective these programs were in stopping phishing attacks, detecting malware and avoiding false positives.

According to its March 2026 consumer review, Malwarebytes passed every major test with flying colors, successfully blocking every malware sample without a single false positive.

Few services have achieved a comparable level of consistency. Malwarebytes would obtain Consumer Assessment Level 1 certification from MRG Effitas, a rating reserved for the most efficient antivirus products.

ZDNET's purchasing advice

Malwarebytes Premium pricing starts at $60 per year for the Standard plan. The Plus plan costs $80 per year and the Ultimate plan is currently discounted to $140. Each tier is also available in Family and Small Business options.

Malwarebytes positions itself as a powerful cybersecurity suite combining strong malware protection with a broad set of security tools that go beyond what you'd expect from a typical antivirus. Normally I would recommend alternatives, but honestly I don't think you can do better than Malwarebytes.

Bitdefender is a solid alternative. It will cover five devices for one price. This is one area where it beats Malwarebytes. But if you don't need as much protection, stick with Malwarebytes.