Not happy with Avast antivirus

[David Freed]

I have been using the free version of Avast for quite a while and was very happy with it. About a week ago I started getting a pop up screen saying I needed to upgrade to their new version. I had the choice of going with the free or paid version. I was so pleased with how it had been working that I decided to go for the paid version. I sent them a check (no credit cards since losing my business) and a few days later I got an email with a link to download the new version.

The link wouldn't work so I called customer service. I got a foreigner that I could barely understand. She had me go to a website and click on an "ok" box. The next thing I know they had control of my mouse and I didn't. They started doing things really fast and when I realized they were changing things in the registry I unplugged the internet connection. They disabled Malwarebytes and changed a few other things in the short time before I stopped them. I tried using a restore point (several times) to undo whatever they did. Although my computer says the restore was successful it wasn't undoing what they did. I had to uninstall and reinstall Malwarebytes to make it work again. Everything seems to be working now but I wish I knew what they changed.

I looked through several reviews this morning and decided to install Web Root anti virus. It was rated from very good to the best in the reviews I looked at. I ran a complete scan twice and it has quarantined or deleted 257 different things. Many of them were low risk cookies from pop up ads, but it found four very high risk items that I think had something to do with Avast. From now on, Avast is a virus, not an anti virus far as I'm concerned.

[Norberto Coutinho]

From Microsoft.... and free.

[Chuck Wintle]

I have been using the free version of Avast for quite a while and was very happy with it. About a week ago I started getting a pop up screen saying I needed to upgrade to their new version. I had the choice of going with the free or paid version. I was so pleased with how it had been working that I decided to go for the paid version. I sent them a check (no credit cards since losing my business) and a few days later I got an email with a link to download the new version.

The link wouldn't work so I called customer service. I got a foreigner that I could barely understand. She had me go to a website and click on an "ok" box. The next thing I know they had control of my mouse and I didn't. They started doing things really fast and when I realized they were changing things in the registry I unplugged the internet connection. They disabled Malwarebytes and changed a few other things in the short time before I stopped them. I tried using a restore point (several times) to undo whatever they did. Although my computer says the restore was successful it wasn't undoing what they did. I had to uninstall and reinstall Malwarebytes to make it work again. Everything seems to be working now but I wish I knew what they changed.

I looked through several reviews this morning and decided to install Web Root anti virus. It was rated from very good to the best in the reviews I looked at. I ran a complete scan twice and it has quarantined or deleted 257 different things. Many of them were low risk cookies from pop up ads, but it found four very high risk items that I think had something to do with Avast. From now on, Avast is a virus, not an anti virus far as I'm concerned.

I never have been bothered by avast to update to the paid version...so far all is going well with the free version. That is scary what they started to do to your computer but by clicking ok it allowed them to take control of your computer.

[Phil Thien]

From Microsoft.... and free.

Pretty decent product. Very fast progress on the heuristic analysis.

Hope they keep it up.

[David Freed]

I never have been bothered by avast to update to the paid version...so far all is going well with the free version. That is scary what they started to do to your computer but by clicking ok it allowed them to take control of your computer.
This might be a stretch, but I wonder if it really was Avast I was talking to. I thought the barely able to speak English lady was having me download the program from the site she directed me to. I thought clicking ok was going to start a download.

[paul cottingham]

That sounds like it may be distinct possibility.

[Chuck Wintle]

did you get your money back?

[Dave Lehnert]

I was reading in a magazine the other day AVAST rated very high. Also said the Microsoft listed above was also good. I use AVG.

Who knows what happened but sure unplugging the connection in the middle of the process did not help any.

[Chuck Wintle]

the technician should have explained every step of the process if it was legit. You were right to pull the plug when they started to make changes. And the link to download should have worked...something strange about that. I was using AVG free until it let a virus through which caused major damage to the OS. A scan by AVG never picked it up so I went to avast free which seems to work well. But in the end I wonder just how much protection any of the free editions actually provide.

[Curt Harms]

This might be a stretch, but I wonder if it really was Avast I was talking to. I thought the barely able to speak English lady was having me download the program from the site she directed me to. I thought clicking ok was going to start a download.

Avast is a Czech company, so the language thing may have been legitimate, or not. It still kinda sounds like some sort of hijack to me.

http://www.avast.com/about

[Ernie Miller]

I've been using Avast (free version) for years, but a couple of weeks ago a bug got through and the next thing I know a lot of my friends were getting bogus e-mails from me which took them to a site selling Viagra and other pharmaceuticals. Avast did find and eliminate the bug, but after the fact. So I upgraded to the paid version which is quite reasonable in price. No waiting days for a download link. The whole process took two minutes. I think you were on a bogus site - not Avast!

[Jim O'Dell]

I run Avast, and have been happy with it. I did get the "opportunity" to upgrade to the paid version recently when I got a reminder that my free subscription was running out, but chose to keep the free version, and downloaded the new version of that. No problems yet. My computer was running very slowly this am, so I ran Avast, didn't find anything, then the disc cleanup program, moved some files fro C to D to gain some room, and I'm running defrag now. Hopefully that will free the computer up some. Might try the Microsoft mentioned above if it is still running slow. Do they have a version that works on Windows 2K?? I have found that different virus programs seem to find different things. None of them seem to find all of the problems. Jim.

[Chuck Wintle]

on their website you can buy 2 years of protection for the price of 1.

[Ted Jay]

I have been running Trend Micro for 3 years now with no problems, and very satisfied with the program.

Ted

[Johnny Kleso]

Taking control of your computer seems to be the new thing and I NEVER let them do that.. If they can not tell me what to do then they need to transfer me to someone that can..

They always get pretty upset when I say NO but those are my rules.. I use Norton and they want to do the same thing.. I hate Norton but its free from my ISP.. I think McAfee was my favorite once I figuered it out..

[Phil Thien]

Taking control of your computer seems to be the new thing and I NEVER let them do that.. If they can not tell me what to do then they need to transfer me to someone that can..


Speaking from the perspective of someone that often assumes control of an end-user's PC, I can tell you that I can't afford the time it takes to explain the steps to someone, especially when many of them depend on the outcome of the previous step.

I've had people tell me "a network of colored pipes" when I asked what was on their screen (yes, they were describing the pipes screen saver).

Gotta cut end-users like that out of the loop.

[paul cottingham]

Why anyone would use an anti-virus product from a company that makes such a vulnerable OS, is beyond me. They have known what makes Outlook so vulnerable for years, yet don't fix it properly, just keep putting on band-aids.

So I don't trust MS for anti-virus at all.

And I would never let someone I don't know take control of my computer. Ever.

[Phil Thien]

Why anyone would use an anti-virus product from a company that makes such a vulnerable OS, is beyond me.

Hypothetical question: So even if it was the best anti-virus product, you still wouldn't use it on grounds that it was from a company that made an vulnerable operating system? You'd prefer to use an AV product that was inferior but from a third party?

Just MO, but I think Microsoft is finally taking viruses seriously. It is my belief that they don't feel they can leave this important responsibility to third party providers any longer.

[David Freed]

on their website you can buy 2 years of protection for the price of 1.
That is what I did.


did you get your money back?
No. I figure it would be a waste of time trying.


And I would never let someone I don't know take control of my computer. Ever.
I wouldn't either. As I said, I thought I was downloading the program I paid for, not giving someone control. I should have just hung up the phone when they started jabbering in broken English.

[paul cottingham]

Hypothetical question: So even if it was the best anti-virus product, you still wouldn't use it on grounds that it was from a company that made an vulnerable operating system? You'd prefer to use an AV product that was inferior but from a third party?

Just MO, but I think Microsoft is finally taking viruses seriously. It is my belief that they don't feel they can leave this important responsibility to third party providers any longer.

I don't disagree, BUT if they were really serious, they would fix their operating systems.

[Chuck Wintle]

I don't disagree, BUT if they were really serious, they would fix their operating systems.

I have to +1 Paul on the fixing part. 15 years after win 95 the Windows OS is still vulnerable to viruses. Contrast that to Linux or Mac with almost no viruses infecting them. How come MS, with thousands of programmers, cannot create a bulletproof OS??? It begs the question!

[paul cottingham]

I have to +1 Paul on the fixing part. 15 years after win 95 the Windows OS is still vulnerable to viruses. Contrast that to Linux or Mac with almost no viruses infecting them. How come MS, with thousands of programmers, cannot create a bulletproof OS??? It begs the question!

Thousands of paid programmers, to boot!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Someday Linux and Mac will be popular enough that the hackers will decide to go after them too.

Currently, the people writing that stuff are writing it to get the most bang for the time they invest.

[Chuck Wintle]

Someday Linux and Mac will be popular enough that the hackers will decide to go after them too.

Currently, the people writing that stuff are writing it to get the most bang for the time they invest.

Ken,

Nevertheless MS has the resources to make an OS that is resistant to viruses and hackers. I have to believe they have left the OS vulnerable for some other reason...but not trying to start a conspiracy theory or anything like that.

[paul cottingham]

Someday Linux and Mac will be popular enough that the hackers will decide to go after them too.

Currently, the people writing that stuff are writing it to get the most bang for the time they invest.

It is no a matter of popularity, the architecture is inherently insecure. Processes running as super-user -very common in windows- make ms operating systems much more vulnerable. *nix does not do this as a rule.

Also, open source operating systems have thousands of eyes looking at the source code, so fixes are much quicker, and vulnerabilities found and patched more readily.

[Phil Thien]

"Just fix the O/S."


It just isn't that simple.

MS tries to balance flexibility with security, and accommodate applications from anyone that wants to write one (many of which bring their own security holes).

And you have to consider that the modern O/S is the most complex thing ever conceived of by man (not kidding, tell me something more complex than the modern O/S).

Finally, Linux and OS X (FreeBSD) are full of security vulnerabilities.

[paul cottingham]

Ken,

Nevertheless MS has the resources to make an OS that is resistant to viruses and hackers. I have to believe they have left the OS vulnerable for some other reason...but not trying to start a conspiracy theory or anything like that.

laziness, hubris and too many apologists make for weak security. ms has them all in spades.