Virus checkers with irritating pop-up ads

[Sean]

I've been a long time user of Avast as it has little impact on the system's performance and I found its protection pretty effective, apart from e-mail attachment infections.

Last year it displayed an ad about its VPN service and why I should avail of it if I'm using public Wi-Fi zones, etc. It gave me a free trial of the service and that seemed fine.

Later on, another pop-up appeared saying I've a vulnerable version of Flash and strongly suggested turning on automatic updates. So I click the button and up comes a large pop-up about its Premier product and that I need to upgrade to avail of this update feature. So I updated Flash and a few hours later it flashed another pop-up about WinRAR. The same sort of thing went on for about a week with it finding another out of date product and kept reminding me that I should Activate automatic updates, which again fails as it asks me to upgrade.

Over the Christmas period it displayed a handful of pop-ups about its Christmas specials as well as reminders about the offers about to run out, etc.

Now today, here we go again with another product. This time I captured screenshots as I knew it was up to something when this popped up:

The message seemed to be persistent, so I went ahead to click on it and got:

I've a paid Avast Internet Security subscription, so let's give this a try:

Now Avast is turning into another "PC Optimiser" like product, at least an Adware product anyway.

At this stage, I'm seriously thinking of changing to another Antivirus product, even if it means ditching the rest of the subscription period. If this was the free version, I would have changed to something else several months ago, just like I did with my mobile Antivirus.

Is there anyone else with a virus checker acting like this? If so, please mention it here, so we can hopefully help others avoid the adware products.

[DrageMester]

Maybe you need an anti-anti-virus product to keep you safe from those pesky anti-virus products?!

[Sean]

I’ve now decided to just uninstall Avast and just be done with its advertising. I did fill out that uninstallation survey about this issue, although I’m sure its input is just going to get overlooked or deeply buried amongst all the other survey inputs they get.

I’ve now installed the Malwarebytes trial and Windows Security Essentials, as Malwarebytes works on top of an existing antivirus product. If this combination works well over the coming weeks, I’ll likely do the same on the other computers in my house.

[olyteddy]

MSE and Malwarebytes is all I use on around half a dozen PCs around here.

[voxsmart]

I got really fed up with AVG doing a similar thing and having a control paned to match Windows 8 modern UI. I now use A paid for pro Malwarebytes and MSE. It seems to work fine. What MSE doesn’t catch, Malwarebytes seems to mop up. MSE and Malwarebytes don’t get in the way, no bloat and no pop ups!

[vroom]

The only time that I got a virus was back when I was using MSE, switched to avast, and i totally ignore their stupid promotions.

So far everything looks to be OK with avast, and I have no plans to move to another anti virus, plus I also have the feeling that most free antivirus will have ads to make you go to the paid versions.

But, it’s unacceptable to continue to show them once you are a paid subscriber and that would be a very good reason to move to another antivirus.

[voxsmart]

I did pay for the basic AVG as that’s all I wanted, but I still had the pop ups trying to get me to buy the whole suite. The most annoying thing was the exclamation “Did you feel that!” stupidity and “Did you see how fast your computer booted up?” Err, no, I’m using an SSD and your idiot anti virus prog is really annoying. MSE actually seems to catch more nasties than AVG.
vroom,
Were you using just MSE on it’s own?

[vroom]

[QUOTE=voxsmart;2717348]I did pay for the basic AVG as that’s all I wanted, but I still had the pop ups trying to get me to buy the whole suite. The most annoying thing was the exclamation “Did you feel that!” stupidity and “Did you see how fast your computer booted up?” Err, no, I’m using an SSD and your idiot anti virus prog is really annoying. MSE actually seems to catch more nasties than AVG.
vroom,
Were you using just MSE on it’s own?[/QUOTE]

Yes, only MSE, and back then I was using a mechanical drive so MSE and any anti-malware software would only add a few seconds to the boot process then egain even know i only have the free version of avast and no anti-malware software installed.

[voxsmart]

Vroom,
Malwarebytes used to do a free version, but I can’t find it now, but it’s not expensive and it’s a lifetime licence. I run it in manual mode so as not to interfere with MSE It may be OK but the anti malware in MSE might conflict with Malwarebytes if run fully auto. BTW, Malwarebytes is so good, all the professional IT Guys I know use it and they say their colleagues use it as well.

I don’ use the Flash or quick scan, just run a full scan every day. A very nice little proggy.

[vroom]

The free version of malwarebytes in in their front page, it’s 10MB I’ll install and give it a go for a few days.
Then maybe I’ll go for the full version.

[roadworker]

[QUOTE=vroom;2717352]
Then maybe I’ll go for the full version.[/QUOTE]

Good idea…@ the moment,they still offer lifetime licenses,which will be honoured when version 2 will be released.
While a free version will still stay around,the pro will change to a yearly subscription.
V2 will have MalwareBytes Anti-Rootkit integrated and some other improvements…
I hope that they also integrate MalwareBytes Anti Exploit as once this 1 is out of beta,it will be a paid product …

[Sean]

I never thought about them being lifetime, so no point waiting for the trial end period. I bought two licenses (desktop & laptop), which came to a lot less than than what I paid for Avast and being lifetime licenses is all the better.

[QUOTE=voxsmart;2717348]I did pay for the basic AVG as that’s all I wanted, but I still had the pop ups trying to get me to buy the whole suite. [/QUOTE]
I didn’t realise AVG was doing the same also. I thought these companies would be happy to have paying loyal customers, not to try exploiting them.

I can understand them doing this with their free products, as in that case they have little to lose, i.e. if the user switches AV product or continues using the free version, the company is not making any money anyway from that user.

Hopefully Malwarebytes remains a non-intrusive product. Their free app mobile is even a huge improvement over Avast, as it has not advertised anything since I installed it several months ago. The only thing it does do is display a “Scanner found no threats.” in the notification pane each morning, where as Avast would display something like “Potential privacy issue found” and then ask me to buy its product before it tells me what’s wrong.

[roadworker]

[QUOTE=Seán;2717362]I never thought about them being lifetime, so no point waiting for the trial end period. I bought two licenses (desktop & laptop), which came to a lot less than than what I paid for Avast and being lifetime licenses is all the better. [/QUOTE]

Good move…
But MBAM is a complementary product,no full fledged antimalware suite.
If you really want a good deal,you can buy Outpost Security Suite with lifetime upgrades for 3 PC’S ATM for €59.59 !!
http://www.agnitum.com/purchase/security-suite/

[QUOTE=Seán;2717362]Hopefully Malwarebytes remains a non-intrusive product. Their free app mobile is even a huge improvement over Avast, as it has not advertised anything since I installed it several months ago.[/QUOTE]
Their mobile app is great,I use it to complement AVG on my Note 2…

[cholla]

@ Seán , I just turned off the Grime feature. I have the free version.
On Vista .
You have to go into it with Control Panel .Then to " Programs & Features" .
Then Uninstall/Change . Select “Change” then continue & uncheck Grime Fighter.

@ roadworker, I still have an old Outpost firewall on my Windows98SE. Obviously it doesn’t have updates anymore.

[Sean]

In case anyone is curious what happens when Malwarebytes finds a problem on a webpage, it shows this in the upper-right of the screen and then disappears a few seconds alter:

[diane7]

[QUOTE=olyteddy;2717324]MSE and Malwarebytes is all I use on around half a dozen PCs around here.[/QUOTE]

Thats what I use also:flower:

Edit : I also use this in my chrome apps .
I must say it has Blocked a few webpages that are potentially dangerous.
“You may Proceed at your own risk”

[Sean]

[QUOTE=cholla;2717374]@ Seán , I just turned off the Grime feature. I have the free version.
On Vista .
You have to go into it with Control Panel .Then to " Programs & Features" .
Then Uninstall/Change . Select “Change” then continue & uncheck Grime Fighter.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the tip.

As my parents laptop still has Avast Internet Security (one of 3 licenses), I’ve now uninstalled the Grime tool and also the Secure Line feature as I know it nagged me a handful of times about this also, especially each time the feature was on sale.

Avast Secure Line costs more than HMA, has fewer servers (handful vs 1000’s on HMA) and doesn’t work on DD-WRT routers that I’m aware of. For example, I have a DD-WRT router with HMA to get around geographic restrictions with my standalone Internet radio.

[Sean]

I decided to this thread with Avast introducing ads for third party products.

Earlier today while browsing Amazon on Chrome, I got an unusual toolbar-like pop-up saying that I can save money on the product I’m looking at by buying it at (shop link). I never saw this type of ad before on Amazon, so figured I somehow ended up with adware on my laptop. Then I just happened to notice the familiar ‘a’ at the top left of the ad - When I uninstalled Avast a while back, I forgot to remove the Chrome extension and now it’s serving ads.

Coincidentally, my mother came to me with her laptop wondering how to dismiss a pop-up ad. It was actually in Avast’s software updater window - When it updates an application (e.g. Adobe reader), it displays an ad (in this case for some video game) in the same window as the progress bar for the update. So that ad keeps playing until whatever product Avast is updating completes. Reminds me - I probably should replace Adobe Reader on her PC with something less resource intensive.

[cholla]

@ Seán , I use Avast free as well as MalwareBytes & Spybot S&D.

Also a not started A/V I like to use in Safe Mode by Emsisoft .

I don’t seem to have the ad problems with it you do.
This could be because I didn’t install everything Avast offers.
Just what I needed.

I also use this outside of Windows:

Emsisoft | Emergency Kit: Free Portable Malware Scan and Removal

[roadworker]

[QUOTE=Seán;272929] Reminds me - I probably should replace Adobe Reader on her PC with something less resource intensive. ;)[/QUOTE]

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