Help! I don’t want to download from CNet

Janice says, “Help!”
TC & EB please help me!?? I had my computer in the shop & now my Malwarebytes program is gone so I need to download it again. I went to your info on the net & clicked the link that had the FREE program which I want but, it always takes me to the Cnet site!

I don’t want all their “extras” when I download, so could you please tell me how to find a SAFE place to download?? I wish you had it on your site! I know i can trust you! Thanks for all the help!

Our answer
Thanks, Janice. Luckily, Malwarebytes is available from many different places on the Internet – but you have to be careful. There are rouges with similar names. Here’s a tip for you – but use it with caution:

Most freeware downloads (and many shareware downloads as well) are available from many different download sites. Not all download sites are on the up and up though – so you really have to do a little reputation checking. Don’t ever assume anything. There are many rogue software programs with names similar to “Malwarebytes”. And may download sites offering Malwarebytes may not be sites you want to download from – either because (like C|Net) they’re bundling other software with it, or they’re offering one of the rogue products with a Malwarebytes-sounding name. You might have to do a little more googling to find out which sites are legitimate and which are offering the genuine Malwarebytes (which we highly recommend). Then you have to be careful that you download the free version. Several of the download sites, including the usually reliable Major Geeks, we’re offering only the shareware (paid) version from which, we assume, they were earning a commission. If the only place you found Malwarebytes was Major Geeks, you might think Malwarebytes didn’t offer a free version anymore. So doing a little legwork, can save you a lot of trouble and frustration later.

In this case we’ve done your homework for you. Our googling and reputation checking turned a couple of links for you. There were others but this should be enough to answer your question.

http://www.filehippo.com/download_malwarebytes_anti_malware/

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/malwarebytes.html

Both of these download sites have proven to be safe to use. Both have good reputations based on my quick reputation check (

One more thing: Some of our older articles were written before C|Net joined the software bundling brigade. C|Net is supposedly in the process of cleaning up its act, but that will be subject to proof. Frankly, we wouldn’t trust C|Net – at least not yet. It will take them a long time to earn back our trust.

Finally – We’re not sure how you lost your Malwarebytes program. Maybe the computer tech removed it for some reason. But we’re bringing this up here not only for your sake, but for others who might also have the disappearing-programs syndrome. We’ve received several letters recently from people who have re-installed software because they thought it had disappeared from their computers. Programs don’t just disappear. They would have had to uninstall it, or have done something else like a System Restore or a re-install of Windows, for the program to missing from their computer. Most always, if you have not removed the program, or run a System Restore back to a time before you installed the program, or reinstalled Windows – the program is still there – only its icon is missing. We’re going to cover missing icons in a tip – because it seems to be happening to many people quite often.

We hope this help you!