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.
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
Here's the best free anti-virus I have ever used on the Windows platform. And, it works better than Norton and McAfee.
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
You do realize there's a free version of Avast for home users, right?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
What are we paying these companies for again?
protection ;)
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
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/
No need to post anything new, just read Slashdot.
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.
You realize that MSE is tested as the best, lightest, cheapest AV solution available, right?
I used to use AVG until it got spammy. Then I used Avast! until MSE came out and it tested better. (I use Linux and my brain as my main AV products...)
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/security/363322/updated-antivirus-firms-short-changing-customers says, "The two firms have now denied the claims"...
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.
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!