Does Malwarebytes Work With McAfee?

Using two anti-virus programs on the same computer can cause conflicts between the two, slowing down or crashing your system. Anti-malware tools such as Malwarebytes do not integrate with your system quite as deeply, though, allowing you to run malware scans without issue. Using two programs in this way can help catch malware that one program may miss.

McAfee's features, which vary by edition, differ from those of Malwarebytes in many respects -- for example, McAfee Internet Security provides email and virus protection. Both programs, however, can detect and remove malware such as spyware and adware. The free version of Malwarebytes only runs on-demand scans, while the paid version behaves more like McAfee, protecting you continually in the background.

Malwarebytes will not conflict with McAfee products in the way a second anti-virus software would, but McAfee may stop Malwarebytes from running correctly. Add the following three files in your Malwarebytes installation folder to McAfee's exclusion list: Mbam.exe, Mbamgui.exe and Mbamservice.exe. If you use a higher-end McAfee product that includes Web filtering, make sure you allow access to the Malwarebytes update website at data-cdn.mbamupdates.com.