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This has me completely pissed off. I've been dealing with Avast quite a lot over the past 3+ years. I've been very big on pushing it as a main anti-virus when compared to a lot of the other terrible options out there. However, today I noticed that they no longer allow users to install Avast Internet Security (and I'm assuming Pro either) without giving credit card information. You have to cancel within 60 days or the card gets automatically charged.

http://www.avast.com/en-us/download-trial

They have probably had the same dick heads who ruined other good companies come along and tell them that since they are now the #1 AV in America, that they can afford to demand credit card information upfront, and here folks is the start of a steady decline in another go to software company.

This makes it difficult for me as a computer repair shop to install Avast Internet Security on a customers machine in trail mode and give them the option to purchase the software by their on volition. They have alienated me as a pseudo reseller by making my job that much more difficult.

To the guy at Avast who made this decision, I hope you get fired over it buddy. Way to follow the masses of terrible software.

Since you don't receive any $$$ from Avast - why bother with trial products at all? Just use regular "free antivirus" option, problem solved... All those "internet security" packages (regardless of manufacturer) only add unnecessary bloat which has negative impact on system's resources and add in more needless confusion (due to extra settings and message pop-ups) to general users...

Why wouldn't you just sell AV software, instead of messing around with trials? Or, as JohnC says, just go with a free product (as long as they qualify).

Setting people up with trials is normally a good way to ensure that they won't have protection once the trial has ended.

absurdity wrote:

Setting people up with trials is normally a good way to ensure that they won't have protection once the trial has ended.

Well, the paid products are usually "good" at spamming you with "purchase the paid sub nao!!!" during the trial and especially when the trial expires, so I don't think those people won't have protection for long Though some people may get annoyed enough to completely uninstall the "spamming" trial and get something like MSE instead...

Actually I do sell them under an affiliate program where I get 25% of the sale. Still, I don't want to push customers at the time of receiving their systems back into purchasing something else. This is a drive it before you buy it kind of thing. The Free AV doesn't have all of the same features that the pay versions do. Although its usually pretty flawless, Avast Free being converted into a pay version by plugging in a license file has in the past caused major issues with the install. They ultimately resulted in requiring an uninstall of the free version and and reinstall of the Internet Security flavor.

Well, then, maybe it's time to find another company? I know Kaspersky antivirus/security products don't ask for CC during trial Not sure about their "partnership" program, though...

Welch wrote:

Although its usually pretty flawless, Avast Free being converted into a pay version by plugging in a license file has in the past caused major issues with the install. They ultimately resulted in requiring an uninstall of the free version and and reinstall of the Internet Security flavor.

This sounds like a bug in the licensing mechanism that they will probably fix (if they haven't fixed it already)? Breaking the already-installed trialware product when people attempt to upgrade is bad for business. Regardless, if you want to stick with Avast this sounds like the lesser of two evils?

Personally I'd just install MSE instead and move on. It's relatively lightweight and hassle-free. Yeah, I know it doesn't get very good marks for effectiveness these days compared to much of the competition; but that's something that can change very quickly as new malware (and new malware definitions) emerge. No AV is perfect.

MSE does not cut it, plain and simple. It started out as a strong product but then like all MS projects, became an afterthought. Kaspersky is alright, and while the company makes good tools (See TDSSKiller) their AV has fallen behind. I have a fellow tech that has a large 150+ workstation customer running on Kaspersky. Even the most updated version of the software seems to let us down at times when it really shouldn't.

Although I personally use Avast Free because I know what I'm doing when surfing around, downloading, ect... Most of my customers do not and require that extra layer of protection on things like their emails, something the paid version offers that the free does not. Not to mention that the majority of the time if you mention something being free a good portion of people won't take it serious, so they revert back to crap AV programs that they have been given for free that usually cost something (Norton, McAfee, ect) thanks to the military and government jobs.

Welch wrote:

Kaspersky is alright, and while the company makes good tools (See TDSSKiller) their AV has fallen behind.

I believe that's a little bit of exhaggeration Their antivirus product has always had an excellent detection rates, and still does, according to all of the latest test from various sites like av-comparatives and av-test.org. Same goes for my personal experience... I haven't "caught" any malware recently, but for example when PlanetSide 2 was updating its own client, the Kaspersky (I have the most recent version of their antivirus) warned me about "planetside2.exe" behaving like a "keylogger" and gave me a detailed log of all the system changes the PS2 updater was trying to do to my system, including stuff like creating and then deleting temporary files in my "/Pictures" directory... I'd say that was a good behavior on trying to detect potentially harmful system changes

Of course, some people may also be "put off" by the fact that Eugene Kaspersky used to work at KGB (and according to some rumors still has a very "close" relationships with current federal security service), but unless you keep the "launch codes" on your PC or you're one of those persons who believe that, for example, the Valve's Steam is an "evil program designed to steal your tax data and upload it to IRS" or something - you should not be worried about this at all, comrade

Kaspersky is just a long-term sleeper project so the Soviets (yes, I mean 'Soviets') can one day take down all the computers running it.....OHEMGEEEEEEE

MadManOriginal wrote:

Kaspersky is just a long-term sleeper project so the Soviets (yes, I mean 'Soviets') can one day take down all the computers running it.....OHEMGEEEEEEE

Yes, yes:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07 ... ersky/all/

Thank you for bringing me back to the premier of "The American's"........ Comrade!

No, I don't much care for that kind of stuff... funny you should mention that because the guy who used Kaspersky at that large client is one of those extremely paranoid types. Strange that he never found or mentioned info about Eugene being KGB or having ties with them. I'm 90% sure I could mention it and he would have it stripped off of every computer in the building . Oh boy would that be mean.

Admittedly I haven't really dove in deep with Kaspersky in a little over a year. The largest use I had was dis-infecting about 150 machines with Kaspersky when the Sality virus hit really big a few years back. The guys over at Kaspersky were very good about getting us setup with AV to fix the issue and we weren't even their customers (YET) at that point. Somewhere along the line, I became very disenchanted with their product, not their service. Avast on the other hand I very much like it (not love, still have a few bones) but their support is non-existent in the form of a foreign call center who follows a script (iYogi, 3rd party support)

My go-to AV before Avast and Kaspersky was Avira, not really sure how they are doing now... hmmm..

Avira was a pretty good av product in the past... Pretty "lightweight", never causing significant performance degradation, with excellent detection rates. Had "false positives" issues, but they were pretty responsive about removing such detection when I was sending them "false positive" samples, as well as adding in new valid detection after receiving the actual malware samples.
For some reason they decided not to offer any good "reseller" programs here in USA (and their "free" version was perpetually spamming ppl with Ad banners after each definition update), so I kinda "gave up" on following up with their products. Latest av tests show that the detection rates of Avira's products are still good, but they haven't been "improving" in any significant way, and the prices for their products continue to be somewhat expensive with limited availability (compared to other products, like latest Norton Antivirus which you can get for like $25 for 3-PC license, or Kaspersky Antivirus which you can also get for about same price for 3-PC license), so... Not really sure why would anyone still bother with Avira's products, at least here in USA

ZoneAlarm free antivirus and firewall combo?