Malwarebytes Free Trial
Abele Beardsley
Both of these should be major nuisances for any end-user. I, for instance, would much rather just notice that my malwarebytes is out of date when I try run a scan, upgrade it then, and not have to think about deleting some tiles or deactivating the trial to avoid those cursed notifications that won't disable with the normal notification disabler. Please give us both the option to not install with the free trial activated like you used to, or allow us to purge every single last notification about updating/upgrading. I personally don't mind the free trial itself, it is the literal "please buy me" popup that I despise. I honestly don't think you're doing yourselves any favours either, since I think most normal users also despise the popups. As the end-user, you should have control over how you see your notifications, whether you want to be reminded once a month about your subscription, or if you never want to see anything until the moment it expires .
When you say advertisements, do you mean the popup notifications that say "your trial is expiring" or simply the fact that within the GUI of Malwarebytes itself, there are several "upgrade now", "activate license" boxes, as well as panels that suggest you buy the premium version while running scans? In the second case there, I have no issues whatsoever, it's not a popup so it's fine. If it is the popup notifications, that means I won't be allowed to disable them?
On this computer it would appear that the Trial has never been run. The Trial will have alerts and no easy way to stop those. To prevent future alerts on this computer assuming you're not going to purchase I would go ahead and allow the 14 day trial to expire so that it will never run the trial on this system again.
Panels, Alerts, etc. within the program will continue during the Trial period. During the trial it may popup alerts outside of the program as well. Once that's over though and you've set it as above I don't think you should see those alerts anymore. There will always be advertisements within panels though. I don't foresee that feature being removed. On my own system it runs in free mode and I do not get those alerts but I do get the advertisements running in the panels.
So, I've been using malwarebytes since way before it became a proper antivirus, and I've always thought it enough to have that and windows defender as virus protection. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love malwarebytes!
But on the topic of how many trials has been run on this computer, I can count at least five times. They have all come from when the software has needed to update from one version to another, where it would simply activate another trial period.
It's pretty old, now that I think about it (I only downloaded the other installer for safekeeping, I usually keep one malwarebytes installer, plus chameleon, on my computer) and since it's from before the "malwarebytes antivirus" time, maybe that installation is the reason why I kept getting new trials?
I downloaded free version free 2 days ago . All it is showing is 14 day free trial. What happens when 14 days are up? Is there still a free edition that will be working or does it just stop. A con to get you to use it and automatically graduate to premium. I used a different system before and got charged for the trial. Dont want anything to happen like that!!
After the 14 day trial is over, the Premium version will convert to the Free version. You will no longer have active protections, however you can still perform manual scans and remove any malware that Malwarebytes finds. There will always be a Free version available.
If you really don't want the trial then instead of going through and disabling all of the Premium features, you may instead simply deactivate the trial which will completely eliminate all of those features via a single control. Instructions on how to do so can be found in this support article.
With that said, the idea of the free trial is simply to allow free users to take the Premium version for a test drive to see how they like it in the hopes that they might decide that it is worth purchasing, which many of them do (though not all of course, which is why an option to deactivate the trial exists in the first place as it was deliberately put there by Malwarebytes' Developers to allow users the choice to terminate the trial if they prefer to remain using just the free version/features). The decision of whether or not to use the trial or to purchase a license/subscription is entirely up to the individual. The trial simply allows everyone to see first-hand what the Premium version has to offer so that they may make an informed decision about whether or not to purchase the product. The reason trials are periodically reset is due to the fact that as new versions are released and new features are added, much can change with regards to what the Premium version has to offer, so users who perhaps have continued to use the free version for a long time may reassess that decision in light of the changes that have been made in the most recent release. This is especially true when a new major component to protection is added for example or when the UI has undergone a large scale change.
That is a perfectly good explanation, and in full disclosure I can now recall that I've used the deactivation setting in the past - after looking it up online, because it wasn't clearly offered on the dashboard. I suppose today I just didn't have the patience to look it up again, so I went Neanderthal instead and just stomped all over the real-time protection features. Which, and this is not a minor detail, were indeed clearly shown and highlighted on the dashboard, probably as they are the primary point of the trial version.
However (you knew the "however" was coming, it always comes after the dude goes on a tirade on what a happy camper he is), I am also a stickler for offering users clear options and respecting their decisions. Failing to ask if I want the trial version before installing the update is a breach of that. Failing to offer a one-click option to deactivate the trial version once installed is another breach.
Correct, as it is it typically takes 3 clicks to disable the trial, however just to play devil's advocate here, I'd argue that its placement is quite logical since, technically speaking, a trial 14 day license is still technically a license, so the same page where the function to activate/deactivate a full license is where the function to activate/deactivate the free trial belongs (especially if one were seeking to avoid users who do not intend to deactivate the free trial accidentally doing so by placing it on the primary Dashboard tab where the software's primary functions and information reside, including the main "Scan Now" button as well as the protection options, which themselves are collapsed beneath an expandable menu by default just to avoid accidental deactivation; although the user receives immediate feedback in the form of notifications and alert status were they to disable protection accidentally even if disabled from the Dashboard, so that's slightly less risky of a proposition).
Now, with all of that said, I do agree that there should be an option to opt-out of the free trial during installation, and I have requested this very thing multiple times in the past and will pass on your feedback here once more to reiterate that suggestion in the hopes that this will be changed back (at one time it did offer the option, however I believe that because most users fail to read any of the options during install and just quick-click "Next" etc. all the way through, it was removed for the sake of efficiency to reduce the number of clicks/steps to get the software installed, but I still think it should remain present for those who do read and choose such as yourself).
fwiw - I hope the powers that be listen and go back to offering a totally free install with an OPT-IN for any trials. The recent 3.x update uninstalled my bitdefender free completely, so when I went to disable the trial version, I ended up with nothing. Then re-installing Bitdefender free removed malwarebytes - its frankly no longer worth the hassle to have this as a "second opinion" manual scan option. I used to really appreciate having the free version to double check on downloads and whatnot. Now being forced to accept the trial, go through the hassles for trying to get the free only option and resultant snafus, it simply is not worth the effort. Let me know when a free only version comes back and I'll give it a try. This is really sad. From trying Avira, Avast, AVG, Panda, Bitdefender, etc - none have offered a free product as difficult as this one.
go back to offering a totally free install with an OPT-IN for any trials. The recent 3.x update uninstalled my bitdefender free completely, so when I went to disable the trial version, I ended up with nothing.
no offense to any here moaning about the free trial period but, 1st: nothing extra is being installed when on a trial it's all in the software already it's just active during the trial and off on free DUH!!! 2nd: i love MBAM it's the best software ever and i wish i could get more free trial time. the software works great. 3rd: you get to use all the power of MBAM free and you complain if they try to sell premium so they can also make a living. I love how people thing software just magically appears, there are actual people creating the software and keeping it up to date and your getting most of it free while they still have to make a living, they have families too, people are just selfish and want everything free.
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