Three ways in
The maker matches the route to where the subscription came from. Each route ends in the same place, a subscription recorded in the account and a device counted against its allowance:
Signing in, for online-store purchases
A subscription bought in the online store sits in the buyer’s account. The desktop app activates it by signing in from its subscription card, and the maker confirms the sign-in with a verification code sent by email.
A licence key, for retail cards
A key from a retail card is linked to an account first, where it becomes a subscription; the app then activates by signing in. The maker warns that if a card is lost before its key was added to an account, the licence details cannot be retrieved.
An MB code, for another device
A device that already has the subscription, or the account itself, generates an MB code that passes the subscription on. The code lasts 90 seconds and works once.
The licence key and the License ID
The maker calls its licence string a license key. Older subscriptions were issued as a pair, a License ID and a key, and the account’s registration form has a box for the ID when one exists. Its current articles give neither the key’s length nor its grouping. Its list of reasons a key is refused is practical: missing or wrong characters, a key for another product, an expired key, or too many earlier activations. It also notes that the letter S is easily mistaken for the number 5.
The 90-second MB code
The MB code is the maker’s way of moving a subscription onto another device without retyping a key. It is generated from the account’s option to share with another device or person, or from the subscription settings inside the app, and the receiving device enters it to activate. Each code is limited to 90 seconds and a single use, so a code is useful only in the minute or so after it is created.
What the account shows
The Manage Subscription page lists current subscriptions, with each licence key shown under the subscription’s name, together with the devices using them and the billing and payment methods. The same page is where keys are added, subscriptions shared, devices added or deactivated, and automatic renewal managed. Deleting the account, Malwarebytes notes, does not cancel or affect any subscription.
Renewal and the start of the term
Subscriptions bought in the online store have automatic renewal on by default, and a reminder email arrives 30 days before the renewal date. Turning renewal off leaves the subscription valid until it expires. Renewal emails are sent by Cleverbridge or 2Checkout, which Malwarebytes names as its payment processors, and the store itself is run by Cleverbridge as reseller. Under the licence agreement the term starts on the date given on the purchase receipt or, if none is given, on first use, and purchases carry a 60-day money-back guarantee that does not extend to renewals.
The free scanner and the trials
The free edition is a scanner that works when it is run. The 14-day trial of Premium for Windows reverts to that scanner if nothing is bought. Trials that took payment details renew into a paid subscription unless cancelled, while trials without payment details charge nothing. The mobile apps offer seven days of premium features.
Phones and tablets
The maker again matches the route to the place of purchase. A store subscription is reached by signing in to the account; a Google Play or App Store purchase is restored from the store; and a subscription already used on another device arrives by MB code or, on Android only, by a licence key linked to the account first.
What the maker says it never asks for
The maker’s article on checking a renewal email lists the details it will never ask for, whether in an email or in conversation with its staff:
- Passwords or PINs
- Verification codes
- Social Security numbers
- Credit card information
Its 2026 warnings describe the current impersonations: renewal emails and calendar invitations that carry a number to ring, after which the caller installs remote-access software and demands payment by gift card, wire transfer or cryptocurrency. Malwarebytes’s advice is not to follow links or ring numbers found in unsolicited messages.
The account and an imitation
As in every comparison on this site, the address bar is drawn above the page and read before it. The imitation borrows a domain reserved for examples, so it stands for a type of page rather than for anywhere real.
Six terms from the card and the account
Six expressions a subscriber reads on the card or in the account, briefly defined.
License key
The string on a retail card or in the account, linked to an account before the app uses it.
License ID
The second half of the older ID-and-key pair, entered alongside the key when a subscription has one.
MB code
A code generated to pass a subscription to another device, valid for 90 seconds and usable once.
Manage Subscription
The account page for subscriptions, keys, devices, sharing, billing and automatic renewal.
Link an existing subscription
The account option under which a key from a card is registered to the account.
Cleverbridge and 2Checkout
The payment processors the maker names as the senders of genuine renewal emails.