Malwarebytes review: One of the most user-friendly and comprehensive antivirus software suites

Looking for the best antivirus software to protect your online identity and offline machines? Malwarebytes is an excellent choice, and it blends robust, smart features with a user-friendly design to deliver a comprehensive package. With its recent software refresh, Malwarebytes offers an expansive suite of features, including an AI-powered Scam Guard, Digital Footprint Scanner, and more.

The premium protection comes at a premium price, though, especially for businesses. Malwarebytes may have a detrimental impact on your system resources too, as I experienced in my testing. But if those are compromises you’re willing to make, I doubt you’d be dissatisfied with the software.

For the complete breakdown, read my full Malwarebytes review.

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Malwarebytes review: Specs

Malwarebytes review: Costs & what’s covered

Just like every other antivirus software provider out there, Malwarebytes offers different plans for consumers and businesses, depending on the user’s needs and requirements. We’ll start with Malwarebytes’ consumer plans, and there are three available. The Standard plan is available for $44 / £29 and offers basic protection against malware, viruses and more on one device only.

The Plus plan is a step-up from Standard and costs $79 / £49 annually. It includes everything offered by Standard, plus a high speed VPN and anonymous browsing. Malwarebytes’ most expensive plan for consumers goes by different names in the U.S. and the U.K. In the States, it’s called Ultimate ($279) and across the pond, it’s called Total (£129). Ultimate and Total feature Advanced Social Media Monitoring as well as $1 million in identity insurance. It’s important to note that Malwarebytes’ top-tier consumer plan is pricier than Bitdefender and Norton 360. There are also various Family plans starting from $149 / £109 per year.

Now, on to the business plans. There are three tiers available. For Sole Proprietors, the plan covering three devices starts at $119 / £99. The Boutique Business plan for 10 devices costs $399 / £306, while the top-tier Small Office plan for 20 devices costs $799 / £612. That’s a lot of dough, especially when Bitdefender’s GravityZone Business Security Plan costs just $444.

As always, I’d recommend reading the fine print and seeing what each plan entails before buying it. But in case you aren’t happy with your purchase, Malwarebytes offers a 60-day money-back guarantee — just like Norton 360.

Malwarebytes review: Protection

The level of protection you get against online and offline threats will depend on the Malwarebytes plan you buy. The Standard consumer plan, for instance, offers protection from viruses, Trojans and spyware, as well as personalized security assessments and advice. The Total (or Ultimate) plan that I tested offers a lot more, including an unlimited VPN, Identity Theft Protection and insurance, Scam Guard, Digital Footprint Scanner, and Personal Data Remover. I’ll discuss these in detail shortly.

What’s surprising is that none of Malwarebytes plans offer cloud backup and storage or parental controls. The likes of Bitdefender, Avast One and Norton 360 offer these to a degree, making any of these a better choice if these are features you value.

Before diving into Malwarebytes’ performance, let’s take a look at how three independent labs who test antivirus software twice a year (for the most part) rate it, starting with AV Test. Unfortunately, the last time AV Test tested Malwarebytes was back in October 2023, before the software was refreshed and updated, so take this with a grain of salt. The lab rated Malwarebytes as a “Certified” product, with 5.5/6 score across Protection and Performance, and 6/6 in Usability. Bitdefender and Norton 360 received 100% scores across all criteria, though.

AV Comparatives’ April 2026 test report rated Malwarebytes 12th out of the 19 antivirus software suites they tested. AV Comparatives assess system impact, and Malwarebytes scored 75/100 in AVC, 97.4/100 in Procyon, and 17.6 in Impact. That Impact rating is a lot, and it basically alludes to the software having a negative impact on your system’s resources — on paper, at least. Bitdefender (9.6), Avast (5.5) and Norton 360 (5.3) all outrank Malwarebytes here — and it was proven in my testing too, which I’ll discuss soon.

In SE Labs (U.K.) April 2026 report, Malwarebytes Premium was awarded an AAA rating with 97% protection accuracy. While this isn’t poor, Bitdefender, Norton 360 and Avast One are all rated 100% for their protection accuracy.

Malwarebytes review: Performance

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After buying your subscription, it’s time to install the Malwarebytes software on your Windows, macOS, Android or iOS device. There are two ways of installing it if you’re on a desktop. You can either register your unique license key in the already-installed free version, or you can redeem the key via the dedicated webpage. Downloading and installing the software on our testing rig took me about five minutes.

On Android and iOS smartphones, you’ll need to download the app from the respective app store — as I did on my Google Pixel 10 Pro XL — and enter your license key or registered email address when prompted. Of course, this will work only if you’ve bought a multi-device plan.

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Naturally, the first thing I did after installing Malwarebytes on our testing rig was run a system scan, and there are three available: Threat Scan (quick), Deep Scan (full), and Custom Scan (targeted). The Custom Scan is especially handy if you want something between the speedy and detailed scans. I ran a Threat Scan first, as that’s the default option, and the scan was completed within 22 seconds, having scanned over 176,000 files without detecting any anomalies or threats. It’s nice to see Malwarebytes offer a quick scan option, unlike Bitdefender.

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Via the Advanced Settings menu under Scanner, you can access the other scan modes, so I ran a Deep Scan which took 14 minutes and two seconds to finish. It scanned a total of 427,157 files — a little less than Bitdefender which scanned over two million files in 26 minutes. Again, no threats were detected, as I expected as our testing rig is a very clean system.

The first Threat Scan was done with no other heavy-duty apps running in the background, so to assess Malwarebytes’ impact on system performance, I booted up Cyberpunk 2077 and Forza Horizon 5, and ran in-game benchmark tests. As you can see from the table above, Cyberpunk 2077’s frame rate dipped a fair bit, from 87 to 75, and Forza Horizon 5’s from 110 to 99. This isn’t bad per se, and I didn’t notice any stuttering or lag while playing the games, but it’s important to note that with Bitdefender, I achieved 97fps in Cyberpunk 2077 and 123fps in Forza Horizon 5 with the software performing a Full Scan.

After finishing the in-game benchmarks, I ran a few tests at speedtest.net to see how Malwarebytes impacted upload and download speeds. You can see the results in the table above. Upload speeds took quite a hit with the Deep Scan running, something I didn’t experience with Bitdefender and Avast One.

My testing goes to show that Malwarebytes has a negative impact on system resources and performance, and aligns with the aforementioned AV Comparatives’ April 2026 test report.

Malwarebytes review: Features

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Alongside in-depth and quick scanning, Malwarebytes includes a bunch of extras to protect you against online and offline threats. I tested a few of the goodies included in the Malwarebytes Total plan, starting with Digital Footprint. Digital Footprint basically lets you know of any security breaches, including leaked or stolen passwords. All you need to do is enter your email address and Malwarebytes will search the internet for any anomalies.

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I first entered my team’s joint mailing address and Malwarebytes noted that the data from this email address was not exposed — which makes sense, as you can’t individually log into it. So to put the feature through its paces, I used my personal email address, and Malwarebytes found a few concerning breaches. Websites that I haven’t used in years still had my data, and were even involved in breaches.

Happily, Malwarebytes gives you a quick rundown of when the breach occurred to give you an idea of how long your data has been exposed. You can then fix the issues as needed.

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Many antivirus software companies are pushing scam protection these days, which makes sense as AI-generated scams are more common than ever, and they can be quite hard to detect by humans. Malwarebytes’ Scam Guard is an integrated AI assistant, and within this tab, you can drop a link and image and ask the software to check if it’s legitimate.

I attached a screenshot of an email I received from Microsoft pertaining to a login on a new device. Scam Guard analyzed it and told me it was safe, and even advised me of next steps. I followed that up with asking Scam Guard to check if a TikTok URL was safe to click on, and it informed me that it was legitimate too, citing the legitimacy of the URL and TikTok’s position in the market.

I also tried the File Shredder tool which enables you to permanently delete files to varying degrees, including overwriting data several times using complex patterns so there’s no trace left of it. I did this with a throwaway screenshot that Malwarebytes promptly got rid of. It’s like using a physical paper shredder… but digital.

Finally, I tested the Malwarebytes VPN which is included in the Total plan. The unlimited VPN allows you to choose from over 150 servers in 60 different locations — a little less than Bitdefender where you can connect to one of 4,000 servers in 50 countries, but still good. The VPN takes around a minute or so to connect and once it’s done, Malwarebytes works to stop sophisticated cyberthreats while still providing fast internet speeds.

Malwarebytes also offers Identity Theft Protection and once you’ve signed up for it by entering your details, it monitors the dark web and alerts you if your data is being illegally traded or sold. It can track and report changes in your credit activity and score too. All in all, Malwarebytes offers a complete protection package — the top-tier Total plan does, at least.

Malwarebytes review: Interface

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I really like Malwarebytes’ interface and design. The online dashboard, known as Secure Hub, where you can change account settings is accessible, clean and doesn’t feature intrusive pop-ups — and the same goes for the downloaded software too. Everything is easy to understand, thanks to plenty of signposting. I also like that the software gives you a protection score, depending on the measures you’ve taken and settings you’ve activated to protect yourself.

Another thing I appreciate about Malwarebytes’ software is that the desktop window can be maximized and made full-size to take up the entire screen, unlike Bitdefender and Avast One. This helps you see all the features at a glance and saves some time as you don’t have to keep scrolling to find what you’re looking for.

Malwarebytes’ app on iOS and Android is just as user-friendly if not more, and it also gives you a protection score — mine was 20 before I enabled the various features, like Firewall. The app doesn’t eat into your storage either as the download requires just 60MB of free space.

Malwarebytes review: Support

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Since Malwarebytes was redesigned, the software now offers 24/7 customer support via email and online chat, so if you’re ever in a pickle, help is available. This is a similar level of support to what’s offered by Bitdefender, Avast One and Norton 360. Getting help is super easy too. There are plenty of troubleshooting guides available, and they should be your first port of call. Malwarebytes Labs is an extremely active blog too, where the team posts news and updates.

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If all else fails and you need to speak with a human, you can first speak with the AI chatbot which can answer simple questions. I asked it how to register my license key and it promptly gave me a solution.

I then asked to speak to a human and it asked me to either sign in or continue as guest, so I chose the latter and I was asked to enter some information and a short description of the issue. It then created a ticket and told me a human agent would get back to me via email, and it took a human two hours to reply to my email.

Easy to do, but it’s worth noting that Malwarebytes doesn’t offer telephone support, unlike Bitdefender and Avast One. As someone who doesn’t like speaking on the phone, I don’t mind it, but it may be an issue for those who need urgent help.

Malwarebytes review: Verdict

Malwarebytes is one of the most intuitive and user-friendly antivirus software suites you can buy today. Packed with robust modern features, like AI-powered Scam Guard and Digital Footprint Scanner, it effectively protects you from online and offline threats. 24/7 web and email support, the unlimited VPN, and an accessible mobile app make this a compelling package.

However, Malwarebytes falls slightly short of perfection when compared to heavyweights like Bitdefender. It has a noticeable impact on system resources, including frame-rate drops in demanding games. Its top-tier business plan carries a premium price tag too, which means its competitors offer better value for money.

But at the end of the day, this is a highly capable and accessible shield against sophisticated, modern threats. Backed by a 60-day money-back guarantee if you aren’t satisfied, Malwarebytes is still an excellent choice for those who value identity protection — as long as you have the hardware to cushion its performance footprint.