Malwarebytes is pretty aggressive and certainly good at clearing out minor things like tracking cookies as well as other more serious Malware. I have never run it on my DAW where I only connect to sites directly related to installed software and leave it to Windows Defender, but do run it on a couple of other computers in the house. The one my wife and I use stays reasonably clean. There is another the grandkids are allowd to use and that gets hundreds of hits when you run a scan.

I've always just used MSE. Because of this thread I just downloaded Malwarebytes and did a scan with it. Found zero instances of anything shady. I wonder how people get so much malware on their machines? I'm not exactly the most cautious surfer. 

I don't know where these came from either sharke.
 
I certainly haven't changed my browsing habits during the time that I noticed the system degradation and I've not had a fully fledged virus for years.
 
But the difference now is absolutely staggering! The affected pc is running like it was when I first built it.
 
 

Yup I think I've always used the same porn site.

CakeAlexS
Yup I think I've always used the same porn site.

+1... also you want backup drives not connected to the machine unless backing things up... that one supposedly will encrypt any connected device it can get to.

Yes - including mapped network drives.  Supposedly not UNC drives over the network, just mapped ones, but for companies or multi-pc networks of any sort, it's a huge problem when your data isn't protected.

Acronis sale has been extended till the end of the year, worth the (very little)  money for true image. Cheers

My audio PC only goes online to receive Windows and driver updates. I use MSE and IO Bit ASC 7 Professional. Good combo IMHO but again I do not surf the web. 

Windows 8 has the default Windows Defender.  It replaces MSE as it does both Anti virus and malware.   I have not had any problems in over a year with Win8, now 8.1.

How ironic, guess what happened  to me today!!!

http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showthread.php?212494-Not-good-enough!!
 
They will probably try to tell me it's a false positive...