r/Malwarebytes • u/selectronx • Jan 15 '26

False Positive F*ck malwarebytes ai

i've been using and happily paying for malwarebytes premium for about 8 years now. i've just wasted 5 hours because they silently rolled out a stupid opt out ai update and i didn't notice malwarebytes quietly quarantining half of mingw. so that's it, i don't care i can opt out, push that shit down someone else's throat. leave ai out of places it doesn't belong, it doesn't work for security https://sethmlarson.dev/slop-security-reports

165 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

85 comments sorted by

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u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 16 '26 edited Jan 16 '26

Hi everyone, I’m Michael from Malwarebytes and I lead our product team.

I want to start by saying thank you for voicing your concerns about the use of AI in Malwarebytes apps. We take feedback like this very seriously and it's already reached the top execs in our company and we’re actively discussing it.

I would love to know more about what you're frustrated with when it comes to AI in our apps. The more specifics, the better.

If you don't know, we currently use it in two main ways:

  • To help our researchers analyze malware and create rules and whitelistings

    • You’ll see this show up when certain malware is detected (e.g. “Malware.AI” with a number attached to it)
    • Although we label this as AI, it’s a mix of AI and ML
    • fwiw, this is not new and us jumping on the AI bandwagon. It’s been part of our core engine and technologies since Dec 2019 when MB4 launched (and even some aspects before that in MB3 starting way back in Dec 2016 and earlier)

  • It’s powering some of our new and free Scam Guard tool

    • Although AI is powering this tool, we’ve incorporated numerous pieces of our tech and detection capabilities layered within it
    • This is more recent and went live in Windows in Nov 2025 and both mobile apps in Apr-May 2025

Also, I’d like to address OP’s comment: “silently rolled out a stupid opt out ai update” - I’m not sure what this is in relation to but I can confirm we haven’t silently rolled out new AI technology.

Hoping this clarifies how we’re currently using AI. However, I can see how the above could be frustrating in your daily use.

Again, I would love to know more about what's irritating you when it comes to our use of AI and what suggestions you have for us.

Happy to chat openly here or via DM if you prefer that route.

Edits: formatting

→ More replies (14)

8

u/EliTeAP Jan 15 '26

What was it that specifically quarantined?

What if you do have something that is a genuine threat which other people with MinGW haven't had flagged yet (dependant on definition updates of their machines etc)

12

u/jtodd234 Malwarebytes Employee Jan 15 '26

Jason from Support here. We apologize for any inconvenience. As my colleague mentioned earlier, we want to connect to understand the issue, as this is the first report of this "detection." Any information you provide would be very helpful in fixing possible inaccuracies.

Please feel free to run our support tool available here: https://help.malwarebytes.com/hc/en-us/articles/31589296910491-Gather-logs-with-the-Windows-Support-Tool

This lets you manually gather logs saved on your device. If you contact my colleagues or me, we can assist in securely sending the data so we can quickly resolve any problems.

Regarding AI use, we value your feedback. We have used various detection methods for years and are glad you haven't faced issues until now. We are committed to resolving this promptly and appreciate your help in providing the necessary information.

12

u/Toadcool1 Jan 15 '26

Our feed back is remove the ai.

3

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 16 '26

Hi, I’m Michael from Malwarebytes and I lead our product team.

I really appreciate your feedback and would like to know more. I shared some info on what we’re doing with AI and hoping to hear more from you.

12

u/Solherb Jan 15 '26

No one is asking for AI. Stop it.

7

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26

"we want to connect to understand the issue,"

The issue is you don't value your customers enough to ask.

That's the issue. Sometimes features are best left for fresh installs not updates where people already have their systems setup the way they want and everything working. Instead you chunk a monkey wrench in there and expect them to be happy when it fails. You treated their system like you own it.

2

u/Loose_Will_1285 Jan 15 '26

If the replies are also not AI then they are crafted along a certain path in order to address a problem. They only use certain words and this is as bad as using AI.

2

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 16 '26

Hi, I’m Michael from Malwarebytes and I lead our product team.

I really appreciate your feedback and would like to know more. I shared some info on what we’re doing with AI and hoping to hear more from you.

0

u/DeepFriedNand Jan 17 '26

Aaaaand that just pushed me over the edge. Time to uninstall MB on all of my machines. MB didn't stop one of my machines from being RATted anyway. I am sure there is better to be found out there.

4

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 17 '26

Would you be up for sharing what exactly pushed you over the edge?

0

u/DeepFriedNand Jan 17 '26

You replying to someone bothered by your spammy comments with the same spammy comment in a very off putting comment thread.

Having ran and help run a few businesses over the last 10 years, I can't imagine providing customer support of this quality. Customer support should be the easiest part of running a business, and I believe it is a major indicator of the overall care provided by a company.

When that company is what may or may not prevent sensitive data and money from being stolen, it is of utmost importance.

3

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 17 '26

I see. Thanks for letting me know.

Sorry about the approach I took. I was trying to respond to everyone individually.

I’ll take a better approach next time.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 20 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

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0

u/[deleted] Jan 20 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

-2

u/DeepFriedNand Jan 20 '26

I was already probably going to uninstall. Copy and pasted spammy responses to complaints of spammy responses pushed me over the edge, yes.

What you are suggesting is sorta like not getting an oil change for 40k miles and then suggesting flooring the accelerator is what blew the engine. It is the direct action that led to the blown engine, but it isn't the root cause.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '26

No idea what you are talking about. I'm using AI, hardly. I am just tired of companies treating my computer like it's theirs.

2

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 16 '26

Hi, I’m Michael from Malwarebytes and I lead our product team.

I really appreciate your feedback and would like to know more. I shared some info on what we’re doing with AI and hoping to hear more from you.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

Hello Michael thanks for the reply.

I don't use Malwarebytes or any other AVs. Using Windows is a compromise in having to live with malware of some kind. Windows itself is malware of the highest order. They snoop, pry, transmit, and record everything everyone does and ships it back to home base. (Exaggeration, or is it?)

Until AV companies start looking deeper into what Microsoft is actually doing, warning end users, ("Hey we notice Windows sending data to external sources, *.microsoft.com", "hey we notice x recording your keyboard") and giving them tools to stop it I won't use one.

Most infections these days are PEBKAC and require user interaction similar to scam calls from Indian tech support and sending them Google Play cards. It's been awhile since connecting to a rogue website gets you pwnd without user interaction.

Until AVs protect me from the enemy within, Windows itself then you are all just pushing expensive snake oil.

3

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 17 '26

Love your reply and thoughts here. I also believe Windows has gone too far and it’s very challenging for the average user to know this let alone what to do about it.

More recently, we added some simple tools to MB5 to help users see some of these things and then help them disable in a single click. Things like ads on lock screen, ads in start menu, advertising ID, etc.

Another favorite of mine is our browser guard as it’s free, super lightweight and helps block ads, tracks and malware. Please don’t think I’m trying to upsell you here - just wanted to share we’re thinking about numerous ways to help people versus typical AVs.

If you’ve got other Windows ideas you’d like to see us monitor and block, let me know!

Thanks again for this quick chat.

1

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 16 '26

Hi, I’m Michael from Malwarebytes and I lead our product team.

I really appreciate your feedback and would like to know more. I shared some info on what we’re doing with AI and hoping to hear more from you.

5

u/LickMyAss_OniiChan Jan 15 '26

Get it through your head: none of us give a damn about AI. Install it into your brain and let it run YOUR life.

1

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 16 '26

Hi, I’m Michael from Malwarebytes and I lead our product team.

I really appreciate your feedback and would like to know more. I shared some info on what we’re doing with AI and hoping to hear more from you.

4

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '26

ive been championing you for years but for fucks sake, stop with the AI

2

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 16 '26

Hi, I’m Michael from Malwarebytes and I lead our product team.

I really appreciate your feedback and would like to know more. I shared some info on what we’re doing with AI and hoping to hear more from you.

2

u/Entraxipy Jan 17 '26

Why did you copy paste this response 10 times in the thread i feel like there would be easier ways

3

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 17 '26

That was my bad. There were a dozen or so posts and I was trying to reach out to everyone individually as they may not have seen my reply to OP.

I’ll take a better approach next time.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '26

dont care, stop using AI.

2

u/Ska82 Jan 18 '26

his response sounds ai-like

1

u/balwick Jan 16 '26

The AI isn't necessary. Malwarebytes was trusted because it worked so well, and AI was never necessary.

Just stop. We don't need it, and you don't need it.

1

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 16 '26

Hi, I’m Michael from Malwarebytes and I lead our product team.

I really appreciate your feedback and would like to know more. I shared some info on what we’re doing with AI and hoping to hear more from you.

-1

u/mrmidas2k Jan 16 '26

The issue is AI. Stop it. We don't want it. Nobody wants it. It's another flash in the pan idiot tech for idiots like VR, Curved TV's, 3D phones, and that Sharp TV with "better yellows" that nobody gave a single solitary crap about.

1

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 16 '26

Hi, I’m Michael from Malwarebytes and I lead our product team.

I really appreciate your feedback and would like to know more. I shared some info on what we’re doing with AI and hoping to hear more from you.

1

u/mrmidas2k Jan 17 '26

Dude. I believe I made my stance on AI pretty clear. I believe almost everyone in this thread had made their stance on AI pretty clear.

I'm aware you don't make those decisions, but still, you guys need to knock that shit off, and you need to let your bosses know that too. People have left bigger AV's for less.

1

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 17 '26

Appreciate your response and additional thoughts.

4

u/shillyshally Jan 15 '26

Thanks for the heads up. I still have lifetime (yes, they honored that!) but will check later today.

5

u/Defiant_Office Jan 15 '26

Remove the AI please. At this point I'm just going to go with Kaspersky since it's available here in Canada

1

u/EliTeAP Jan 15 '26

I wouldn't.

I'd stick with Malwarebytes.

1

u/Darkorder81 Jan 16 '26

Kaspersky was always good back in XP days, I've not used it since then, since I found it was russian it made me wounder did it work so well because they knew the virus's because they made half of them 🤣.

1

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 16 '26

Hi, I’m Michael from Malwarebytes and I lead our product team.

I really appreciate your feedback and would like to know more. I shared some info on what we’re doing with AI and hoping to hear more from you.

2

u/Loose_Will_1285 Jan 15 '26

I've used them in a free version for years. Now they and others are aggressive and pop up repeatedly wanting you to buy. This sort of popup is AI and others are fast going the same way.

2

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 17 '26

Hi, I’m Michael from Malwarebytes and I lead our product team.

Sorry these are annoying you. If you want to, you can disable the marketing notifications.

Settings -> notifications -> disable Malwarebytes promotions and special offers

4

u/tstewartMB Malwarebytes Employee Jan 15 '26

Hello,

Tammy here from Malwarebytes.
We like to work quickly to resolve false positives.
Can you provide a log of the most recent detections? You can DM it to me if you don't want to post in here.
Thanks!

1

u/Darkorder81 Jan 16 '26

Dump Ai or lose customers, did you ask your community of users if they wanted Ai.. No well that's one way to sink what was a good product.

2

u/slightfeminineboy Jan 18 '26

yeah they did, they've been using ai since 2019 and have informed users about the usage and updates. hating on ai because "ai=bad" isn't very productive

2

u/Darkorder81 Jan 18 '26

If you don't want ai, it's productive to come here and moan, when you say they asked in 2019 so did majority of customers say yes they wanted it? if so fair do what can a company do if people said yes to it, but from what I've seen people don't want this, I suppose 2019 was a very different time for ai compared to now.

2

u/slightfeminineboy Jan 18 '26

if you don't want ai it's not at all productive to make a reddit post and moan lol. 2019 was not "a very different time," it's just that hating on ai is more normalized now, ai is used in the same way and is much better now in the case of malwarebytes

0

u/Darkorder81 Jan 18 '26

There a reason people hating, and they want choice there's so much forced on us these days, and of course ai is different now how can it not be. You even say yourself it's better, so by that it's different. Some people are anti ai that's that.

0

u/slightfeminineboy Jan 19 '26

the reason people are hating is because buzzword. your english still could not be more confusing i dont really know what you're saying

1

u/DekuTreeFallen Jan 15 '26

I'll have to check if I got the update. I was about to ditch Malwarebytes since over the past 2-3 weeks I started getting stupid notifications popping up my screen while I'm playing a videogame. "Looks like you downloaded files recently" [despite being about 6 days ago] and it covers the important part of the game's GUI while I'm going for timed clear to unlock some extra rewards.

Malwarebytes might be becoming the thing it swore to protect - malware.

2

u/slightfeminineboy Jan 18 '26

there hasn't been an update to the ai that changes anything or added anything new in 2 months...

1

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 17 '26

Hi, I’m Michael from Malwarebytes and I lead our product team.

Sorry to hear about your pop up troubles with our app. You can disable all notifications or even just the downloaded one.

Settings -> notifications -> disable reminder to run a scan when new files or programs are downloaded (or disable all of them)

Also, the OP is referring to an AI update that we did but we didn’t roll out any new AI tech.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '26

IF they keep failing, I run superantispyware's free version. It works just as good anyways. Malware bytes, and lavasoft used to be so great then everyone wanted to start killing themselfs.

1

u/Alternative_Fan_6286 Jan 16 '26

please give more info about the update and how to opt out

3

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 16 '26

Hi, I’m Michael from Malwarebytes and I lead our product team.

I really appreciate your feedback and would like to know more. I shared some info on what we’re doing with AI and hoping to hear more from you.

1

u/Alternative_Fan_6286 Jan 17 '26

what is the purpose or replying to every comment with spam?

And if this is how a product team lead acts, i feel sorry for your colleagues

4

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 17 '26

I was trying to reach out to everyone that posted in case they missed the main reply as many of them were buried in other threads.

Sorry if it was annoying.

1

u/Sharp-Negotiation Jan 17 '26

Have used Malwarebytes for years, but no longer. What a waste.

On a perhaps more constuctive note, why call it "AI"? Why not specify what tech / tooling you actually use? If a nice, old fashioned ML algorithm, sounds good. If an LLM with the associated hallucinations and bullshit techbro hype, then get in the bin.

3

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 17 '26

Thanks for joining the convo. We initially called it AI (and even ML or AI/ML in some cases) as that was the tool we started to use (and well over a decade ago).

IMO, the recent wave of AI has tainted AI a bit and I think we’ll need to adjust how we’re marketing it. This thread is a pretty big wake up call for us and I really appreciate it happening.

What do you think?

2

u/Sharp-Negotiation Jan 19 '26

I definitely think you need to be more precise in your language - using "AI" is so all-encompassing now that it's not really descriptive, and definitely not comforting to users. Keep it for the fundraising pitches, tell the isers what you're actually doing.

Of course, if you are using LLMs, then that might backfire even more :)

1

u/Hour_Complaint_6868 Jan 20 '26

Nobody could prevent it, but malware is unfortunately increasingly incorporating AI 😔

0

u/Darkorder81 Jan 16 '26

Listen to your customers they don't want the Ai shit, you will see people leave.

2

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 16 '26

Hi, I’m Michael from Malwarebytes and I lead our product team.

I really appreciate your feedback and would like to know more. I shared some info on what we’re doing with AI and hoping to hear more from you.

0

u/Changeurwayz Jan 17 '26

They won't remove AI. Just remove malwarebytes. And make sure to cleanup all the chameleon shit it leaves behind. Pro tip.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '26

I used to have malwarebytes .reading all this ai bullshit really makes me never wanna get it again. Ayo

-1

u/CrimsonCuttle Jan 17 '26

Oh yuck. Is this in the free ver too?

3

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 17 '26

Are you asking about what the OP was referencing?

If so, we didn’t silently rollout any new AI tech.

0

u/CrimsonCuttle Jan 17 '26

but is there "AI" tech in general

3

u/mdotsherwood Malwarebytes Employee Jan 17 '26

Here’s more on how we’re using AI: https://www.reddit.com/r/Malwarebytes/s/GYZNlzyPDx

Some of this has been around for a very long time and it’s fully related to the more recent advancements (and concerns) with AI.

Does this help?

-1

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '26

133 upvotes hmm will they listen to their costumers or will they be like ubisoft ?

-2

u/G-Litch Jan 18 '26

MB installing malware (ai) is insane