3.75 GB is almost 4 GB. 3 is 3. MalwareBytes is fine as an on demand "malware" scanner. Not to be confused with an antivirus.

I have great results with it when cleaning PCs for others. I have it installed, but I seldom scan my machine, only when the machine "tells me " it needs a scan by acting weird.

FireFox, meh...I like IE9.

Kona, are you sure it's not a picnic error?

Or a pebkac error?

How about an ID-10-T error?

Just messing with ya on that one!  

Not sure. I was doing a full system scan with Malewarebytes. Wanted to look up something so I maximized Firefox and it froze until I paused the Malwarebytes scan.

Kona...a better proggy would be aware when you are actively using/doing something and pause the scan till there was some dead air to continue...

So what do you use then Jafo? Guess my software isn't good enough. 

Now that you look like having a job....you might invest in some proper software.  Generally there is a reason why some stuff is free.

This time last week I was saving a person's BUSINESS computer from a trojan attack.  Not only had it locked him out of his OS and business, it even managed to delete his freeware Comodo AV and firewall.

OK, so some of it was down to your-average-person-getting-it-wrong but the rest of it was thanks to a freebie AV that wasn't up to snuff.

By the time I'd installed a commercial-grade AV/wall and finished a full scan [after quite a few preparatory steps] we'd removed 37 'serious' objects.

Comodo won't be coming back again.....he's now using the full ver of AVG 2013.

Unfortunately for him...he caught the issue on friday morning....by which time I was 100 miles away at the World Superbikes ...so his business was just about screwed till I got back on the monday arvo.  [He has a Newsagency with about 8 sub-agents].

Free is rarely a good option with AV.  There will come a time when everyone suddenly realises.....sooner or later....

Oh, forgot.....I use Kaspersky, IE9 [and sometimes Chrome]...

I also use Kaspersky with IE8.  Will probably upgrade to IE9.

Free works just fine for me. Many years without a virus. I've been using AVG Free all this time. And yes that scan by Malwarebytes came up clean.

And you should know by now, after all these years, about how I feel about paying for software. I don't think anyone should have to pay for a decent anti virus program. That was the same complaint to Microsoft before MSE came out, and Microsoft even got that program wrong. Why pay good money to cover holes in Windows programming?

Microsoft did nothing wrong with MSE, and before you point me to any article showing a low detection-rate etc. let me explain.  Detection-rates among AV programs will vary from month-to-month.  As I have now stated numerous times on these forums, I never use third-party software (AV or Firewall software) for protection.  The best protection your system will ever have is for you the user to use it from a 'least privilege' perspective.  Any third-party program will only ever be able to provide adequate protection to your system when compared to 'least privilege' computing.  While securing one's system through 'least privilege' is preferable, I do recommend finding a third-party program or two for a second-opinon on overall system protection/health.

To that end I recommend doing the following.  Since no 'real-time-scanner' can/will protect you from yourself on your system better than 'least privilege' I also weed out the programs that seem too focused on real-time 'protection' and instead get programs that focus on on-demand scanning (second opinion).

I suggested the following software a year or so ago in an AV thread started by Doc but here are some of the same recommendations again.

1.  Hitman Pro (www.surfright.nl)  -  One of the fastest on-demand scanners I have ever used.  (It uses the cloud to connect to 5 scanning/detection engines and a few years back was one of the only scanners that properly cleaned systems of the google-redirect etc.

2.  Emsisoft Antimalware (www.emsisoft.com)  -  One of the most aggressive/deep scanning AV programs I have found to date.  While the program does have a seemingly robust real-time aspect, I find the on-demand scanner one of the best.

3.  MS Malicious Software Removal Tool I use if the first two on the list found and removed something.  Of course one should run it in advanced/complete mode, and not the default 'fast scan'.

4.  MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials) is a decent program in my view for what it does.  It is light on resources (too many AV programs that offer real-time protection put a stranglehold on your system resources and to me that is a shitty tradeoff) and when combined with 'least privilege' computing is as much as the average person requires.

Monk, thanks for the list. I still don't like MSE. You can't turn off the auto-updating behavior. Very annoying. I don't let ANY program on my machine the ability to update itself. Everything is set to manual. 

EDIT: By the way, every test I have seen, no matter the month, MSE gets bad marks. 

Thanks for those helpful links Monk , I'm in total agreement with your assesment and have bookmarked this thread for future referrence.      -- Ace --

so you think all software should be free of charge, huh? people create these apps on their time just to give them away to everyone? that would be a heck of a way to make money these days, wouldn't it? i doubt brad would have Stardock and employ as many people as he does if he gave all the apps away. i know you LOVE linux but it seems you're more than happy to use Win7 or 8 when they're given to you along with a free computer.

by the way, go ahead and use your free anti-virus app with out of date virus definitions. that's a pretty decent security system...NOT. i swear you say some of the most ridiculous things. "I don't think anyone should have to pay for a decent anti virus program" may just take the cake. you do realize if MS included an AV app within Windows, there would be numerous lawsuits from third party AV vendors, don't you? "Why pay good money to cover holes in Windows programming?".....why pay for Windows at all if you can get somebody to give it to ya, right?

the idea that free software is done for free is wrong. likely most code of the main Open Source software is written by Red Hat, Google, Oracle etc. employees. those companies usually pay higher salaries than the average shareware company.

i wholeheartedly agree with you that kona's statements are ridiculous. and you really hit the bulls eye on his stance on software/anything. if he has to pay for himself, stuff sucks and/or is overpriced. if somebody else pays everything's fine, but maybe not good enough.

First of all insert facepalm here. You completely misread my post, or failed to understand me.

For the record I like Linux, and what it represents, I just can't use it as my main OS. I have even written a blog entry about that very point. I have used Windows 99 percent of the time I have owned a computer, the other one percent being a Mac.

http://kona0197.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/linux-the-reasons-why-it-will-never-work-for-me/

I believe I have up to date virus definition, That is the ONLY app I allow to auto-update. I never used to do that, but it got too time consuming to manually update the app every other day. 

As for buying Windows, I have bought Windows. Every new laptop or desktop I bought over the years had XP or 7. And for the record I would have gone and purchased Windows if it hadn't been offered to me, no worries.

Yes, some software should be free. Or there should be a clear choice between a free and a paid version. Microsoft didn't bundle MSE with 7, but they did with 8 if I recall correctly. I don't see any lawsuits. 

http://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-security/windows8.aspx#antivirus

You make it sound like I am an ungrateful person when nothing could be further from the truth. I am ever so grateful for the computer, the help, the advice, and the friendships that came of this thread, and I always will be.

I really wish this forum had an ignore feature. Some people here have nothing better to do than antaginize others it seems.  

To be fair kona, you do your fair share of 'antagonizing' people with ridiculous comments.  

(For example the comment or two in the IE 10 thread recently posted by Doc.....you know the post I'm talking about).

Usually I don't feel the need to point out such posts of yours (since I think when your comments are ridiculous it is pretty much apparent to everyone anyway) and usually focus my posts on tech and other such topics which I believe I know something about. 

Also, I believe it is an augmented Windows Defender included with Windows 8 (not MSE....although it 'looks' the same) as well as the Smart Screen Filter (which used to be focused on the browser only) now has tighter overall OS integration and not just with the browser. 

EDIT:

Windows 8 has additional security-focused advancements over previous MS OSes like Secure-Boot, ELAM (early launch anti-malware) which loads any anti-malware associated driver prior to any other drivers (thereby potentially reducing the risk to rootkits etc.), more integrated application sandboxing for Windows 8 applications (app container) as well as sandboxing IE addons etc.   In my opinion, with Windows 8 (especially if employing 'least privilege') the need for additional third-party 'security' apps is actually lower than with competing OSes.   Again, just my opinion.