Can you use anti-malware software to prevent the installation of unwanted programs?

Anti-malware software can prevent the installation of unwanted programs if it uses a real-time scanning function to detect malware as it attempts to install itself. Not all anti-malware software has this feature, nor can malware prevent installation of unwanted programs if they are not detected correctly.

Most malware scanners rely heavily on databases to check new software for potential threats, so an unwanted program that is not in the database can often still successfully install itself. While some malware packages also use heuristic methods to check for undocumented threats, there is no guarantee these methods can detect a malicious program before it successfully installs itself.