The antivirus industry is getting steamed up about the forthcoming end of XP support. Last week we saw Avast warning of the vulnerabilities users might face.
Today anti-virus specialist Malwarebytes announces its new Anti-Malware Premium product and at the same time is pledging that it will continue to support XP users for life.
The company says that XP users currently make up 20 percent of its user base and could be at greater risk after 8 April when support for the old operating system ends.
The new Premium product has a streamlined dashboard interface that makes it easy to see the protection status of the PC along with a heuristics engine designed to detect and eliminate malicious software based on its behavior. It also has anti-rootkit technology and adds malicious URL blocking and protection from potentially unwanted programs. As before Malwarebytes will run alongside traditional security software to provide an additional layer of protection. A Chameleon mode allows Malwarebytes to open even if the system has an infection that tries to close down security software.
The company hopes that continuing support for XP will boost its presence in the business market. Marcin Kleczynski, Founder and CEO of Malwarebytes says, "Corporate users can't just upgrade, they may have legacy software running on XP and don't what to spend millions on updating".
The new program doesn't replace the free Malwarebytes cleanup tool which has been downloaded more than 200 million times and will continue to be offered. Anti-Malware Premium will be available later today, existing users with lifetime licenses for Malwarebytes Anti-Malware PRO will get a free upgrade to the new version.
Kleczynski concludes, "We are proud of what we have created and believe it builds upon the success of our existing products to give people a strong proactive countermeasure against today’s advanced online threats".