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Why I Removed AVG from my Computer: A tale of abusive anti-virus-ware

thesharklady.com

11–20 of 42 posts

Re: Why I Removed AVG from my Computer: A tale of abusive anti-virus-ware

#12

She boldly declares, "Grisoft just lost a customer, and I'm guessing it won't be the last." It seems an overstatement to call a free AV user a "customer". Those looking for a free A/V solution should check out Avira, though you'll have to disable the annoying upgrade popup.

  Those looking for a free A/V solution should check out Avira,
  though you'll have to disable the annoying upgrade popup.
Avira AntiVir Updates to Version 9 – Make It More Usable: http://www.tipsfor.us/2009/03/18/avira-antivir-updates-to-ve...

Re: Why I Removed AVG from my Computer: A tale of abusive anti-virus-ware

#13
post #10

This is an old article. I also removed AVG after seeing this ridiculous behavior, but after updating it on a different machine I realized they had seen the error of their ways and fixed this issue. They have since removed the error sign when the link checker is disable, and as far as I can see remember they now allow (at least custom) installation w/out the link follower at all (as my installation doesn't even have i…

Do they still hijack new tabs in Firefox so that they show some crappy search page? Because that was the deal breaker for me.

Not in my install, at least. I will admit the scanning is more obtrusive than I would like, but besides that there are no irregularities like that that make it an annoyance.

Re: Why I Removed AVG from my Computer: A tale of abusive anti-virus-ware

#14
post #8

She boldly declares, "Grisoft just lost a customer, and I'm guessing it won't be the last." It seems an overstatement to call a free AV user a "customer". Those looking for a free A/V solution should check out Avira, though you'll have to disable the annoying upgrade popup.

I think 'customer' is a somewhat fair term. The fact that I use the free version of X makes it more likely that at some point I might buy the non-free version of X if I've built up a level of trust with the company, and/or that I'll recommend the product to others/at my work and they will get more users/corporate bussiness. For example I use DropBox and have almost hit the 2GB free limit. I will definitely upgrade as…

She used it for years according to her blog, and doesn't mention buying a non-free version of any of their products. Becomes unhappy with the product, and doesn't mention contacting the vendor about it. Writes on her blog about how it sucks, and recommends another freeware product. I definitely wouldn't call her a customer.

Re: Why I Removed AVG from my Computer: A tale of abusive anti-virus-ware

#15
post #14
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 'customer' is a somewhat fair term. The fact that I use the free version of X makes it more likely that at some point I might buy the non-free version of X if I've built up a level of trust with the company, and/or that I'll recommend the product to others/at my work and they will get more users/corporate bussiness. For example I use DropBox and have almost hit the 2GB free limit. I will definitely upgrade as…

She used it for years according to her blog, and doesn't mention buying a non-free version of any of their products. Becomes unhappy with the product, and doesn't mention contacting the vendor about it. Writes on her blog about how it sucks, and recommends another freeware product. I definitely wouldn't call her a customer.

You can't really blame the user for the (lack of a) businessmodel by the vendor.

If the price is 0 it does not reflect on the user at all.

Even at pricelevel '0' you can be a customer.

Re: Why I Removed AVG from my Computer: A tale of abusive anti-virus-ware

#19

This is an old article. I also removed AVG after seeing this ridiculous behavior, but after updating it on a different machine I realized they had seen the error of their ways and fixed this issue. They have since removed the error sign when the link checker is disable, and as far as I can see remember they now allow (at least custom) installation w/out the link follower at all (as my installation doesn't even have i…

It IS old. I am really surprised I got this link. Sorry you can't comment on it on this site. The original post actually came from my Blogger blog. Thanks :)

Re: Why I Removed AVG from my Computer: A tale of abusive anti-virus-ware

#20

Maybe I'm going against the grain here, but I'm glad Microsoft is going to release free antivirus software. I don't want to worry about choosing one of these third-party products and having my browser hijacked or whatever.

Agreed. This is one of those things that really should be dealt with on an os-level. They could push updates through the same channel as the os security patches.
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