PC Matic Review: What Is PC Matic? How Does It Work?
Technology by NatCollier on Nov 12, 2020
While this antivirus product might not be as popular as Kaspersky or Bitdefender, it does have a strong presence on the market of security solutions. The developer – PC Pitstop – was founded in Iowa more than two decades ago (in 1999, to be exact). Back then, PC Matic was just a website that provided free diagnostics. It has evolved into something much more prominent over the years, but the original concept is still a significant part of it.
The official introduction of the PC Matic antivirus solution happened in 2009. And it looked more like a maintenance service, a set of tools aimed at improving system performance and getting rid of unwanted files. Two years later, in 2011, the team created the SuperShield module, and that’s when this software turned from just another good American antivirus for PC into something else.
The biggest difference between the SuperShield core and rivaling products is how it detects and removes malicious files. This is known as the “whitelisting” approach, and we’ll talk about it in more detail today. Right now, let’s focus on the list of features/tools available with PC Matic.
PC Matic: What is it?
As mentioned, this isn’t a “traditional” antivirus solution, but rather a security suite with a strong emphasis on maintenance. It includes a long list of optimization tools, and while some of them aren’t that effective, for the most part, PC Matic does, indeed, improve performance. That’s especially true for older operating systems that have been running for many years. Here’s what the tune-up features can do:
- Get rid of junk files. Over time, the OS gets cluttered by piles of unnecessary files that the users don’t use. They can put a lot of strain on the hard drive. The same is true for duplicates. It’s not rare for the system to have two or three copies of the same files. The PC Matic maintenance tools remove junks with one single click.
- Boost the browser’s performance. No matter which browser is installed on your computer (Google, Firefox, Safari, or something else), there’s always room for improvement. PC Matic frees up the cache, deletes the search history, minimizes HTTP requests, optimizes server response times, and more.
- Automatically update the drivers. This one is pretty self-explanatory. Most Internet users tend to forget about the importance of downloading and installing the latest updates. PC Matic takes care of that.
- Implement registry cleanup. Similar to the tools that remove junk files and delete the cache, this feature cleans up the registry. That makes the system work faster and significantly improves the OS boost times.
- Remove unwanted ads. The built-in Ad-Blocker does precisely that: blocks ad pop-ups from taking over your device. Malvertising is a significant threat in 2020, and it should never be taken lightly. Modern-day ads can collect user info without his/her knowledge and install spying apps with no permission. The most advanced and dangerous types of adware are also known to cause harm to the system.
Whitelisting vs. Blacklisting
With all the maintenance tools out of the way, let us talk in more detail about the approach PC Matic takes in dealing with incoming attacks. To make it easier for you to understand the concept of the whitelisting approach, we want to take a minute to explain how the so-called “blacklisting” method works. Right now, it’s being used by the vast majority of best-selling antivirus products.
The Blacklisting Method
Application control is at the very heart of antivirus products. By setting some rules, the developers “tell” the software which files/apps should be blocked and which ones should be left alone. Now, blacklisting has been around for a lot longer than whitelisting. In fact, it’s among the oldest algorithms in the history of online security. It’s not that complicated, though.
It requires a list of apps, executives, and other types of files that should be treated as a threat. The experts are calling it a threat-centric algorithm, and its biggest advantage is simplicity. An antivirus that implements the “blocklist” approach only blocks malware that’s marked as dangerous in the database. Everything else gets a pass. This is quite handy for regular users, as the antivirus won’t “attack” them with pop-ups whenever they launch new files.
It’s also a beneficial system for businesses if they don’t have any strict application control policies. The biggest downside of blacklisting – it isn’t very effective against emerging threats. Statistics claim that hackers create 200K+ new malware samples every single day. So, no matter how big the team of admins is, they won’t always test them all and update the database.
That’s why most antivirus products with blacklisting aren’t that impressive against zero-day attacks.
The Whitelisting Method
And what does the relatively newer whitelisting control algorithm have to offer? Is it better than blacklisting, or is it even less secure? First of all, whitelisting is the direct opposite of blacklisting. As you might’ve guessed, instead of making a database of all the known threats, it makes a list of files/apps that can be trusted. Anything outside of that list/base gets immediately flagged as dangerous.
Whitelisting is a trust-centric algorithm, and as real-world tests prove, it is more secure and reliable than blacklisting. No matter how advanced and capable the traditional security solutions are, they can’t be 100% effective with the blacklisting approach. Besides, it takes less effort and time to create a “pass list” simply because the list of trusted apps/files will be much smaller.
This is true both for home users and enterprises. All you’ll have to do is make a roster of trusted files, and that’s pretty much it. On the downside, one wrongly “accused” app may put your business on hold. We’re talking about a situation where the admin flags an essential program as malicious, and the staff is forced to wait while the problem is sorted out. Furthermore, in the case of a big, international company, making a database of harmless apps can take a lot of time.
Another frustrating whitelisting characteristic: even after you come up with a line-up of trusted apps, you’ll still see warning pops now and then. New files, apps, archives, and executables will activate PC Matic, and it will welcome you with warning messages. This can get tedious fast.
Can PC Matic Compete with the Market-Leaders?
As we mentioned in the beginning, PC Pitstop – the company that brought us PC Matic – has been in this business for 20+ years. The whitelisting technology, in turn, is almost ten years in the making. In some ways, they are the pioneers of this technology and know it better than most rivals. In various tests run by the most respected independent lab testers, PC Matic has proven to be quite a reliable solution.
However, it is not very effective against targeted malware attacks. The same is true for ransomware and certain phishing types that implement somewhat outdated yet useful types of attacks. On the bright side, thanks to whitelisting, this antivirus program has a very low system impact. It can run on very old systems (like Windows XP and a Pentium 4), which means owners of not-so-powerful computers can use it for protection.
How is that possible? Well, with blacklisting, your device (computer, notebook, or mobile gadget) has to check every file against a vast database – that takes a considerable amount of time and system resources. That’s not an issue with whitelisting. Next, the big list of maintenance tools that significantly improve the overall performance is also quite useful and can further boost the efficiency of an older computer.
Summing up, while PC Matic’s core antivirus engine is a bit “raw” and needs perfecting, right now, it’s already more effective than blacklisting against specific threats. Obviously, it’s not the only security suite that implements whitelisting. Kaspersky, McAfee, and Bit9 are among the leading providers of this technology. But, PC Matic is, most certainly, one of the most effective options on the market.
Subscriber, NoobFeed
Latest Articles
No Data.