It’s true that antivirus programs use blacklists, but they also use other advanced methods to detect malicious behavior. PC Matic likes to say that other antiviruses only use blacklists to prevent malware. Sure, the PC Matic team looks into unknown programs and you can whitelist programs, but getting a lot of false positives can be annoying.Ģ. If a program isn’t on its whitelist, PC Matic will block it - regardless of whether it’s an actual threat or not. PC Matic regularly blocks valid programs. This sounds good, but there are two problems with this approach:ġ.
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The logic is that it’s easier to keep track of good programs than it is to “keep up” with new malware. PC Matic says that blacklisting programs isn’t effective because hackers constantly come up with new threats. You can manually whitelist a program if you don’t want to wait until PC Matic’s team tests it.
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If it proves to be safe, it ends up on the whitelist. If a program isn’t on PC Matic’s list, it’s automatically sent to the company’s testing team. This means that PC Matic has a database of known “good” programs and blocks programs that aren’t on that database. PC Matic’s malware scanner uses whitelisting to block malicious programs. However, it’s a decent, low-cost antivirus that provides good protection against malware. Honestly, I don’t think PC Matic can compete with the best antivirus programs in 2022. But I’m disappointed that PC Matic doesn’t yet have a mobile app for iOS. I also like how easy it is to use PC Matic’s mobile app (Android only) - although it may be a little too basic for advanced users.
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They check for driver updates, remove junk files, defragment hard disks, and do a lot of other system cleanup tasks. However, I like PC Matic’s PC optimization tools.
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For example, Norton offers a VPN (virtual private network), a password manager, and parental controls, and Bitdefender offers web and microphone protection, ransomware remediation, system optimization tools, and a secure web browser. I also assessed its additional features, ease of use, and overall value.ĭuring my tests, PC Matic’s malware detection rate was 100% - while that’s good, i t also blocked a lot of completely legitimate programs.Īnother issue is that PC Matic doesn’t have many of the additional internet security features offered by competing brands. To find out, I tested it against a wide range of malware, including viruses, trojans, and ransomware.
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I was curious about whether PC Matic’s unconventional approach to malware detection would really work. It blocks any program that’s not on the whitelist. Instead of using a blacklist of known malware like most antiviruses do, PC Matic’s antivirus scanner has a whitelist of all known legitimate programs. PC Matic is not your typical antivirus software.