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!  

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...

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....

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

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.

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

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.

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.

I have never not used IE.   Rather than warning people to or not to do certain things (which tends to have the cause/effect of people blindly doing this or that) I usually lean towards pushing people to educate themselves.  Least privilege is something I've mentioned repeatedly on these forums, and something I probably talk about in-person with people on a daily basis.  It has been and continues to be my firm belief that 'least privilege thinking', the education in tech that comes with learning about it and the shift in how users approach tech moving forward is the single most important aspect about the use of/integration with tech in any one person's life.

The biggest failure I believe the IT industry is responsible for, is in not educating people in that way of thinking/approach to tech.  Then again, I guess one can't blame the 'techies' (IT industry) for making a living when client machines keep coming back to them for 'repairs'. 

very true. unfortunately every Windows user that is able to change a wallpaper and capable to install tons of snake-oil shareware considers him/herself an expert/power user and would never work with anything less than administrator rights. i guess the most popular Windows "tip and trick" of recent years is how to turn off UAC.

Hey Ace I had a question. Did you ever get a 20 second lag between the time you pressed the power button till the time the board actually posted on screen? This board does that every time I turn it on. I was curious if this was normal. 

It'll be normal, though it's possible a bios flash upgrade might change it a bit.  It'll be the auto-detect of drives, etc most likely.

20 seconds at boot isn't an 'issue' worth possibly screwing a MoBo up over by flashing the Bios and getting it wrong.

If it ain't broke...don't fix it....

Yep, my MSI mobo takes a bit to power up, spin the fans, etc. before the post screen appears. Nothing to worry about.