Slashdot Mirror
Antivirus Firms Short-Changing Customers
Barence writes "Two leading security firms have been accused of ripping off customers by cutting short their antivirus subscriptions. AVG and Symantec are offering their own customers discounts on subscriptions via email or pop-ups, but the new subscriptions start immediately, 'short-changing' users who had months left on their existing deal. Both Symantec and AVG owned up to the practice, and said they had no plans to change their ways, instead advising their customers to upgrade as close as possible to the end of the subscription. However, the pair actively send out emails and pop-up messages that encourage customers to upgrade immediately."
Honestly, I don't know what you get out of paying for these that you don't get out of free solutions.
Has anyone ever had a controlled experiment where having the full paid for version of Symantec or AVG actually provided more security than their free counterparts?
Sounds both deceptive and illegal, but ianal. Let's get some actual lawyers that deal with consumer rights issues on this and see what they say.
the ones who claim to protect you from scams and such online?
- My question is: Can Slashdot be Slashdotted? -
Sure sounds like some kind of phishing scam to me! What are we paying these companies for again?
Solution: Uninstall AVG and Symantec and try http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/ instead.
Maybe it will be free forever? Maybe it will stop all malicious attacks?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
is this spam or what?
a corporation with completely open and honest policies was found today; er correction that story is unfounded.
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
Here's the best free anti-virus I have ever used on the Windows platform. And, it works better than Norton and McAfee.
People who profit from other peoples' unethical behavior are accused of unethical behavior themselves? SHOCKER. AV companies are scum.
1) Take over system and bog it down 2) Spam n scam your paid loyal users. 3) ??? 4) PROFIT!
They sent a request to renew to my parents last month even though their yearly doesn't expire until March of next year, pathetic shakedown. They'll be using MSE once it expires.
I bought a laptop for my wife from Best Buy less than a year ago. Normally, I would never buy from them, but this laptop was on sale, and the best bargain we found. It came with a year long subscription to the horrible, horrible Webroot anti-virus program. Less than a year later, we saw a mysterious charge for $49.95 on the credit card we had used to purchase the laptop. Turns out Best Buy had thoughtfully resubscribed us, and only charged us a small fee for the service. Of course, I had uninstalled Webroot the moment we got the laptop home.
We called the credit card company, and as soon as we said the words "best buy" they said "we'll reverse the charges, this happens ALL THE TIME." How is this not criminal fraud on Best Buy's part?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Who need an anti-virus ?
GET FREE VIGRA P1lLS
NO CARR%^^%
It always was. It only catches some of what's out there, and once your system has caught something, you're hose. Time for a wipe and re-install. The stuff it doesn't catch is what you'll get. I recommend against it for everybody I know. Too many people think that somehow having antivirus software actually does something useful, or that their PCs will be magically immune because they have it.
The only real defense against viruses is software that is written from the start to have as few security holes as possible, making sure you keep up on patches, and being careful about what you agree to when you computer asks you if you're sure about something.
People who are already participating in a scam getting scammed even worse than they originally thought isn't much of a surprise to me.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
If you upgrade from one norton product to different product, say like going from norton antivirus to norton Internet security, when you renew you lose the remaining subscription. If you upgrade or renew to the latest version of the same product, like going from norton antivirus 2009 to norton antivirus 2010, you loose nothing. If you renew your existing product you loose nothing.
As the title of this post suggests, I have AVG free edition (yes, I know... it's bad). It's due to renew in 2 weeks with the new version. Amazingly, with only a short time to go on the free edition it detected a "generic trojan" for the first time (despite daily scans and relatively safe online behaviour) last week... just after the nag pop-ups started to appear. It recommended that I upgrade to the paid version. No online scan (eg. House Call from Trend Micro) seems to identify this heuristically detected "generic trojan" in my Sony-Ericcson phone management software. Convenient that it happens now, I thought. Guess who's switching to Avast? sarcasm Although maybe I should stick to this new version of Antivirus7... errrrr, I mean AVG. sarcasm/
...to post a new submission today (actually tied up with tech issues on a Win7 box, but the same net result), but ran into a colleage last night who mentioned that the most recent AVG pro update whacked all 64-bit boxes. Anyone hear any more on that one?
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
1) Charge too much for too little. 2) Give people the least quality they'll stand for. 3) Repeat
which other free AV is good? How does Antivir compare to AVG?
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
I switched over to Microsoft Security Essentials from Webroot SpySweeper (which is a great product) and I haven't looked back. I was looking to just save money and was surprised that Microsoft's anti-virus does a great job. If I can away with not giving money to people who slow down my computer under the guise of offering me security, I'll take it.
Try "peace of mind." It doesn't even have to be actual protection, just the sense that you're protected, even if it's just a bald-faced lie. And they're not afraid to taint that peace of mind if it guarantees sales.
Case in point: I put Norton Antivirus on my father's laptop. The newest version of NAV has a live map lit up with places where cybercrime is reported. Think about it for a moment. It doesn't help detect malware, it doesn't help find or remove viruses, and it does nothing to educate the user, unless you consider the message "Computer crime is everywhere!" to be in any way an informative message. It is there for one reason and one reason alone: to make the user afraid not to have it.
It's why I say "Norton Antivirus: You pay for the security. The fear is free."
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
Symantec ripping people off. This can't be true and I don't believe it. I mean, they have never done it before.
I mean, anybody that used to use EarthLink and tried the EarthLink solution more than likely knows how great Symantec is. For those that do not know, please let me enlighten you: I use to take tech support calls for EarthLink. We were supposed to upsell the EarthLink solution, which was Symantec. Now, if a person already had Symantec, we would be trained to talk that person into buying this as well. Symantec loved it when we would get them to pay for our version of Norton (which somehow seemed to never work right), use the EarthLink version (which was a paid service), and talk them into keeping their old Norton subscription just because "you never know".
Yes, some companies would help Symantec get people on double subscriptions.
The world is how you make it
Why Avast?
MS Security Essentials is lighter and does as good, if not better, at detecting viruses...
You pay more, but the offerings from Trend Micro have been top notch as far as I'm concerned. From detection, protection, to customer support, I couldn't be more happy.
Minor gripe. Trend Micro upgraded their Worry Free suite to version 7. Six was always good. Only a few service packs and updates needed now and then. Seven OTOH seems to be a rushed product.
Life is not for the lazy.
So you're making extra work for yourself to avoid the scammy tactics of a known scammy merchant...?
Why not just buy from somewhere that doesn't use scammy tactics?
Once upon a time I worked for a mega city gov as Linux consultant. I had to quit in disgust after the antivirus sales people mcpaid brainwashed the managers to put it on all linux server. As if it was not bad enough that they were running production systems on Vware. I made an good effort to educate the managers by showing them various articles from wiki and explaining the unix design but failed. Vware is another story, I showed them bonnie++ throughput measurement for disk io on a desktop vs a guest on highend esox. From my perspective looked like they deserve each other, but obviously huge kickbacks were involved. Both parties were benefiting each other at tax payers expense. By experience(15 years) I have learnt that whenever such illogical stuff takes place on a large scale you know that recession is around the corner.
We have a large footprint of OfficeScan/ServerProtect/ScanMail and we renewed 6 weeks early in 2008 and suddenly we got shortchanged, that time. Now, I don't even schedule the order renewal until the week before it's due. We have a large footprint of OfficeScan/ServerProtect/ScanMail and we renewed 6 weeks early in 2008 and suddenly we got shortchanged, that time. Now, I don't even schedule the order renewal until the week before it's due.
As a reseller of AVG, I have never experienced an upgrade license behaving in this manner.
If the end-user is unintelligent enough to purchase a brand new license direct with AVG, of course they will get a brand new license that starts on the date they purchase it.
However, if they renew an existing license, the license always renews from the existing expiration date, AND they often tack on a few extra days or weeks to the license. Even if they are renewing and also upgrading to a different version (say, Antivirus to Internet Security), the license is upgraded, they are charged the prorated upgrade price based on time left on the existing subscription, and then the renewal year(s) are added.
So if you are getting short changed, it's your own fault, not the vendor.
Avira Antivir is the best Free AV anyways. AVG has been a joke for years now.
...contact Symantec support and they'll add them onto your new subscription.
(I know you shouldn't have to jump through hoops like this, but it's better than nothing)
Dude use Microsoft's free security essentials... at this point their really isn't a better free antivirus.
So, I take it you also don't believe in vaccines or take antibiotics when you get sick, right? After all, vaccines are only good for some of what's out there and once you get sick, you're already hosed. Sarcasm aside, there was an old saying about an ounce of prevention.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/security/363322/updated-antivirus-firms-short-changing-customers says, "The two firms have now denied the claims"...
Did you RTFA? After the first part where it says they admit it, the story goes on to say that they deny it, they do extend the subscription, and it's only when you switch to a new product that the clock starts over. Nothing to see here. Move along. Sheesh.
Parent is exactly right. When you look at the time, effort, expense, performance impact on your PC and productivity impacts to the users - Running A/V software turns out to be substantially more harmful than any virus, and likely more harmful than several viruses. If you install A/V on your PC, it might prevent an infection. On the other hand it is guaranteed to sap 30-50% of the performance of your PC. Furthermore, you can put every A/V suite you can find on a PC, it won't stop an unsophisticated user (with admin rights on a wintel pc, of course), from installing the dancing monkey icon or the weather buddy, or the sports gadget, and pretty soon you have and IE installation with two dozen toolbars, a laundry list of keyloggers, spyware, adware, etc.
What amazes me is that americans are always quick to see causation where only correlation exists - Toyota has electronic throttles and old people drive them through strip malls - must be the electronics. B follows A, so A->causes->B, right? Yet in the face of an actual correlation that is causation, they never catch on. Hmmm...I installed the weather gadget bonzi buddy dancing deer girlfriend search wizard, and then my computer got slow and all these toolbars showed up on my IE. I wonder if they're related....Nope, couldn't be.
On the other hand, it's unsophisticated end-users that keep the geek squad and lots of kitchen-table PC techs in business. Eventually the repeat offenders drive me crazy and I send them to any of the "MyFreeFastPCFinallyFixed.dot.com" providers that advertise on late-night TV. Esssentially, they're sentially selling a rebranded adware/spyware/toolbar remover that any geek could install for free. I consider the exorbitant rates charged by these charlatans to be a sort of "stupid tax", and only send someone there after they've reinfected themselves a good 3 times or better.
A/V software has always operated as a blacklist. Because the Wintel platform has never been able to properly implement Default Deny security, because the average Wintel user could never grasp the concept of using a "sudo/su" equivalent, the A/V blacklists will never work. The won't fail because the A/V coders are stupid, nor because the malware writers are clever. They'll fail because the whole ecosystem is broken. With > 1 billion wintel PCs, even if 90% of the users patch appropriately and behave online, that's 100 million potential machines to compromise. That 90% figure is nowhere close to reality, it's probably more like ~20% of PCs are patched appropriately and have users who won't click on the "free security scan, now with naked mermaid" popup ad.
I tried Avast once... And it's UI is a major, MAJOR deterrent. I had 2 icons in the system tray. The annoying spinning icon is distracting.
And their UI once you open it reminds me of the cheap UIs that motherboard makers ship to tune overclocking settings: futuristic (yeah right), confusing, irregularly shaped windows, with inconsistent buttons and color scheme that doesn't make sense.
I hated it. So did the people I installed it for.
Perhaps they changed now.
As it is, Microsoft Security Essentials are the best option for a Windows machine, along with safe browsing practices.
I most certainly take no vaccines or antibiotics, and my line of work involves getting quite filthy and dirty all the time, and exposing myself to all sorts of strange chemicals and micro-organisms.
And I laugh while everybody else around me gets sick, and I remain uninfected.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Paper magazines send out "your subscription is about to expire" within a few months of starting your subscription. Network Solutions also sends you crap telling you your domain is about to expire. They base this on the hope that when you signed up you didn't keep track of when you signed up and maybe have forgotten how long you signed up for.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
...is common sense.
Most client computers I fix that have been infected, despite anti-virus counter measures, are due to them being idiots and clicking links.
Normally these things are a scam to make lawyers rich, but I think this is a case where it is justified. This is plain outright theft by the companies. I paid (not me, someone hypothetical) for a year of AV subscription, then I pay for another year, but I only get 20 months of coverage? That is theft and/or fraud. Probably wire fraud. Federal laws and all that. Bring in the sharks.
This is the worst kind of tautological argument I've heard, and it gets repeated so often on slashdot... You only get what AV doesn't catch? Exactly, just like vaccines never stop what actually makes you sick.
It's called "herd immunity." The reason those old viruses aren't still infecting lots of people is because lots of people have protection against those old viruses and they can no longer spread effectively. You are fairly safe against those old viruses, even if you are completely unprotected, just like you are most like safe from whooping cough even if you are not vaccinated. The disease doesn't have enough hosts to spread effectively. Once people start refusing vaccinations, those diseases can return (again like whooping cough).
I've seen many email viruses in my time, but they have largely stopped BECAUSE so many people have email scanners running. All of the major web mail services scan for viruses without alerting you every time it blocks one...
New threats emerge and there will ALWAYS be lag time between the first reported infections and the definition updates. Some people will get stung during that initial spread. That spread only stops because the virus definitions start blocking it. Again, you are probably safe because most other people are using AV software that is blocking it before it gets to you.
Are you safer against viruses with AV software? Absolutely. Are you MUCH safer? That's debatable. However, your attitude towards AV is harmful to the herd in general and to the people you are advising in particular. Are some AV packages better and some that are almost useless? Of course. Some things that claim to be AV are just scams themselves. None of that changes the fact that good AV software exists and is beneficial to the users.
Personally, for home users, I generally regard "good" as simple and free. My words of "NEVER pay for AV" has saved at least two of the people I assist from falling for those web scams. "I was tempted to follow the link, but I remembered what you said and I called you first." I can't guess how must time, embarrassment, money, and potentially other fraudulent charges that advice saved them.
Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
UID notwithstanding, this is some of the most irresponsible advice I have ever heard. Just because bump keys and high explosives render door locks useless doesn't mean they have no purpose.
Sure, scamware can and often does mess up a computer. However this does not mean people should simply give up on any level of security and maybe protect themselves from, oh I dunno, becoming a zombie in the big spam botnets, or used to perform a DDOS on Wikileaks as random examples. And it's such a simple thing, installing Microsoft Security Essentials as mentioned by others.
FWIW I fix computers as a full time job, and many if not most infections can be repaired using free software.
I had AVG Free installed up until the last time they tried to force an update, because at that point it had become more annoying to me than actually having a virus. It even BEHAVES like malware:
- Adds a desktop icon each and every time it updates, even if one already exists on the desktop
- The last version had a faulty uninstaller, and the developers had to release a manual uninstall tool just to allow some users to get rid of it
- Pop-ups and pop-unders every time a new forced update is ready
- Attempts to install an AVG add-on to Firefox without asking permission first
- Blocks uninstallation of the AVG add-on
- Forced reboots whenever it gets an update
I wish antivirus programs would take the same direction as BitTorrent clients - going from bloated memory hogs (Vuze/Azureus) to lightweight and simplistic (utorrent). It's too bad they never will, because the bloat is a selling point to the clueless consumer.
If the bugs actively hunted down people who weren't infected, I would say vaccines are worthless. Antibiotics are more the equivalent of a piece of removal software than they are a piece of antivirus software.
The ecosystem analogies aren't valid because the computer virus ecosystem doesn't naturally evolve. It's driven by the people who profit from it. And those people will make sure that the viruses your PC is exposed to are the ones you don't have a defense against.
Additionally, I consider most AV software to be a malware trojan in itself with how it takes over your computer and pops up useless warnings about this, that or the other thing. It's all about selling you a completely false sense that you've done something effective about the problem. It doesn't work.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Symantec products has always been too unstable, bloated, and a memory and CPU hog for most.
IT have always removed symantec from all new machines in favour of systems like Comodo or avast. Far better performance and surprisingly better at detection of some viruses etc. Norton AV and other crapware is always the first to go on any new machines.
Secondly the subscription service should be treated like any contracted service and have an expiry date etc based on initial start date. Its against many laws in Australia anyway if a contractor double charges for labour time etc so I can't see the difference with the av subscription contract.
Best thing is avoid Symantec and other overpriced products.
Here's the link www.apple.com
I used to run antivirus software for many years, it never detected anything. So, either:
I don't need it because I didn't get any viruses.
I don't need it because the antivirus software was terrible at its job and missed all the viruses.
Did I instantly get a virus when I uninstalled it? No.
Antivirus software is not a substitute for being sensible. Usually, the people objecting to the people who say antivirus software is useless are the ones who manage to get viruses despite running the AV software.
ClamAV for Windows is a great alternative to AVG/Symantec, and it's also, of course, free of charge. I use the Linux version on my Linux boxes and the Windows versions on the Windows boxes I maintain.
Tech Public Policy stuff
I am not a fan of AVG more than I am agaisnt all other virus scanners. I have seen very very bad *cough* Norton/McAffee/Trend Micro* scanners and AVG seems like a paradise that is fast and non intuitive compared to the other monsters. I admit my experience was using these on Vista which would turn a fast latop into a 486 in terms of startup time. AVG is still very fast compared to the competition.
I want to leave AVG but I do not know if there is a better product. I want to make sure Microsoft's Security Suite can find javascript exploits and popular spyware from Claria. It did not back in 2008 which is why I switched to AVG.
http://saveie6.com/
I never got spammed or scammed by AVG... Also, they didn't even attempt to make me upgrade early. All I got from them was a warning that my subscription will end in 30 days and a promotion code to get a discount if I renew my subscription.
Laudele lor desigur m-ar mahni peste masura.
By sudo equivalent, do you mean UAC (user account control)? Because that already exists. A lot of malware runs in user space only, and doesn't even require administrator rights to function. A DDOS botnet doesn't require admin rights to run under a single user account.
my line of work involves getting quite filthy and dirty all the time, and exposing myself to all sorts of strange chemicals and micro-organisms.
And I laugh while everybody else around me gets sick, and I remain uninfected.
You call licking truck stop urinals a "job"? XD
I'd think if you purchased a laptop that came with a 30 or 60 day subscription that they'd honor that as part of the purchase. Instead, if you get a Norton IS 2011 subscription they'll cut that right out and you will only have your 365 or 366 days left. I'd feel a bit cheated if I was in that situation and I knew. But since I can get Norton legally for free I don't have to worry about that. Not that I would use Norton or any resident AV solution (other than scanning incoming/outgoing email server side).
So, I take it you also don't believe in vaccines or take antibiotics when you get sick, right?
Not when the doctor offered me Hepatitis as the solution to my common cold.
This is not the only examples of shortchange behavior.
Suppose you have memberships with certain warehouse clubs, or AAA, the auto service club. You sign up for a year. The year passes and your membership expires and you can no longer use it. By that time, you will have been pestered to renew.
Several months pass. It's now 15 months since the original start date and your membership has been expired for three months. The pestering finally works and you renew. Instead of giving you 12 months starting then, they back-date it to the original expiration. The net result is that there were three months when you could not use the membership but you have now paid for it anyway.
This is what motivated me to drop AAA and one of the warehouse clubs. If I pay for a year, I think I should get a year. Not less.
when i used windows it saved my ass plenty of times, so i payed for it. symantec and avg however have always fell short in detecting viruses. my license is going to waste now tho since i just use a mac and dont have to worry about the mess which is windows.
I guess all those times AVG caught something before it could cause me grief were just hallucinations. Last time it happened, my family was looking for cool Jack-o-Lantern designs on Google. The top images were linked to sites that immediately redirected to a site trying to install malware. My young kids didn't understand the messages that AVG popped up, but I understood that I'd ducked another hassle thanks to AVG.
This doesn't make the behavior talked about in the article acceptable. But it does make your post meaningless at best. Your "only real defense" is nonsense, BTW. Advising people to not use anti-virus software is irresponsible and naive.
Yup. Security works by whitelisting, not blacklisting. Antivirus is like having a list of all the users who aren't allowed to sign onto the system, and allowing everyone else to sign on.
For real program access security you should use sandboxing, virtualization and program access levels.
Yes, that's a good way of putting it.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
And I laugh while everybody else around me gets sick, and I remain uninfected.
Do all nine of your heads laugh in unison?