What's the difference between Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware?

Getting an antivirus or an anti-malware is a great way to protect your PC and to make sure that your computer isn't a part of a botnet.

But there are just so many options. The main two categories are an anti-malware (like Malware-Bytes) and Anti-virus (like Avast). But what's the major difference between 2 of these.

Firstly let's see the difference between a Malware and a Virus.

Malware is any program that has a malicious code that can harm the computer in any way. So malware can be a virus, an ad ware or a Trojan.

Virus is a type of malware that is made to replicate and spread fast (just like a real virus).

But that doesn't mean that an Anti-virus doesn't protect you against other kinds of malware. Majority of the Anti-viruses protect your computer for more then one kind of malware, and so does an Anti-malware program!

So what's the difference?

Firstly let's discuss why an Anti-virus is still called an Anti-virus when it still protects your computer from different kinds of malware? Well in the 90s viruses used to make headlines, and many people got familiar to the term, and many security companies focused their efforts to protect against viruses, and so came the term "antivirus."

These days it's just a matter a of marketing as more people tend to be familiar with the term virus, compared to the word malware.

The main difference between these two programs is that an anti-virus works in a traditional way. It uses a database called a virus dictionary which contains code from all kinds of malwares. So when you scan a file it compares the file's code with its virus dictionary to find any similarities between the code, and if it does it knows that there is a problem in the program and informs the user and prompts them to fix it.

However ant-malware on the other hand goes for a little bit of an intelligent method we would say. An anti-malware monitors your system by seeing if a program is acting like a malware. It see what a the program is doing and is it doing similar activity to a malware. For example if you download a program that has Trojan in it, and then it later on tries to open your camera and mic, an anti-malware will detect that as Trojan tend to do this.

Anti-malwares are getting more intelligent by time and have started implementing Artificial intelligence as well.

But which one should you go for?

I personally would recommend an anti-virus for someone who isn't very computer literate and doesn't know what he is doing! An anti-virus is usually easier to use. However in most cases both anti viruses and anti-malware do a great job in protecting your computer.

And these days if you're mindful of what you're downloading and doing then there is a very less chance that your computer will get infected. Sure if you go to a site that claims to download free RAM, or award you with money for nothing, there is a high chance that you will get a malware on your computer and you will either need an antivirus or an anti-malware to get rid of the "free ram" you downloaded.

*there is no such thing as "Downloading RAM," please don't download any program that claims to Download RAM and if you really want to speed up your computer you can check out our guide here.*