We are often asked why Malwarebytes on Mac scans the device faster than a Windows device. The reason is that Malwarebytes performs what's called a "quick scan." Rather than scanning the entire hard drive for files that are known to only be installed in specific locations, the scanner targets only items in those specific locations.
For example, when scanning for browser extensions, the scanner examines specific locations, outside of which a browser extension cannot function. Safari extensions can only install in Safari's extension folder (on older systems) or inside apps in the Applications folder on newer systems. Using this method, we not only keep Malwarebytes for Mac clean, lean, and fast, but we also limit the possibilities for false positives.
Additionally, starting with version 4.10 of Malwarebytes for Mac, we made significant caching improvements to avoid scanning files that have not changed since the last time they were examined. This means that there may be scans that happen even faster, and examine only a small number of files.