Author Topic: AVAST ARE THIEVING BASTARDS !!!!  (Read 88383 times)

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garybarnes

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Re: AVAST ARE THIEVING BASTARDS !!!!
« Reply #135 on: March 15, 2010, 09:38:18 AM »
Sanctimonious responses really don't help, do they?
I have upgraded Avast on two computers with Thunderbird 3.
Avast will allow TB3 to work if you remove the account from the SSL Accounts list in the Mail Shield Expert settings, but will then add it back in. This has been a known issue on for months now, it's about time it was fixed.
When I did ythe upgrade, my existing version 4 license became useless.
This is a policy Avast might want to consider revising, but if the damn thing won't work with TB3, I'm not that bothered - I need to find another product which is fit for purpose.

Offline mkis

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Re: AVAST ARE THIEVING BASTARDS !!!!
« Reply #136 on: March 15, 2010, 09:55:05 AM »
Alwil will have critical things to attend to at the moment and that's a no brainer. They are busy.

You need to provide the version you are using when you post about an issue wit yr avast build.

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Aalexey

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Re: AVAST ARE THIEVING BASTARDS !!!!
« Reply #137 on: March 15, 2010, 12:01:24 PM »
Use the Best "Anti virus" in the World called "Acronis True  Image" ;D. I use it over 4 years and I forget  what does it mean "Reinstall OS" or fight with Viruses. I can get My system clean, fresh, adjusted, defragmented, full of necessary programs and looks like I wont, in 5 minutes.

Offline mkis

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Re: AVAST ARE THIEVING BASTARDS !!!!
« Reply #138 on: March 15, 2010, 12:06:50 PM »
eh?
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bong2x

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Re: AVAST ARE THIEVING BASTARDS !!!!
« Reply #139 on: March 15, 2010, 12:12:12 PM »
 ;D ;D ;D i like bumps!!!!! ;D ;D ;D than eh?  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
the purpose of this thread is now forgotten bumps.  :P

crofty59

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Re: AVAST ARE THIEVING BASTARDS !!!!
« Reply #140 on: March 15, 2010, 12:47:03 PM »
I thought i got a bit nasty last year when i spat the dummy"

Compered to sum of the comments i was just being a angel:

Extremely Happy i wasn't Deleted.
I'm back and must say loving Avast 5 ;D

Cheers :D
« Last Edit: March 15, 2010, 12:48:51 PM by crofty59 »

coolsilver

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Re: AVAST ARE THIEVING BASTARDS !!!!
« Reply #141 on: March 15, 2010, 12:55:09 PM »
My 2 cents :
Maybe using rude language is an option to get attention ?
The squeeky gear gets the oil.

If not cut off and replaced by a new less squeaky one. :p

CharleyO

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Re: AVAST ARE THIEVING BASTARDS !!!!
« Reply #142 on: March 15, 2010, 03:44:11 PM »
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Welcome back, Crofty59 !   :)


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andrewlen

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Re: AVAST ARE THIEVING BASTARDS !!!!
« Reply #143 on: March 16, 2010, 02:07:36 AM »
The thread topic caught my eye so I decided to read the whole thing..

Firstly, @mieko - as a System Admin of a small company in Australia and an IT support consultant who has chosen to use Avast on our server and workstations, not to mention moving well in excess of 100 of my clients to Avast to use as their Antivirus solution, I don't necessarily agree with the way you phrased your opening post, but I can certainly feel your pain.

When you spend money on a product you expect to get what you pay for and when problems happen and you get so called "support" such as my recent experience, which can be read about here;

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=57080.0

..it tends to make you re-think your decision. Most of the Avast FREE users who frequent here would have trouble even imagining the embarrassment caused when clients ring you non stop because entire offices are being affected and companies losing money because of the false positive stuff up that occurred with a poorly tested VPS update released not that long ago. So yes, having a problem like that screw a machine to the point where a reload was required by the OP is understandably VERY frustrating.

Ok, we're all human and everyone screws up badly at least once in their lives so while it was a very serious stuff up that would have cost commercial users of the product all over the world many tens of thousands of dollars in lost time, it could potentially happen to anyone. I think even mieko understood that.

However, I think what ALWIL need to remember is that SUPPORT is PART and PARCEL of the fees they are collecting from paying users. Providing a decent AV product isn't good enough if when something goes wrong it takes days to get support and WORSE, when support finally does reply, you get an answer that has nothing to do with the problem you reported in the first place. (See thread link of my recent experience above)

We used to use Symantec products as our AV solution for quite some time and I decided to change us over to Avast because I found Symantec's solutions to be CPU hogs to the extreme (and continue to be so as far as I'm concerned). That said however, their "support" is "excellent" and ALWIL should take a page from Symantec's methods of providing support. Responses (in my experience) were always prompt and generally accurate. This is certainly NOT the case with ALWIL's support from the couple of times I've had to use it over the last few years.

These sort of experiences tend to make me nervous in continuing to recommend Avast to my clients when I'm asked which AV solution I think is the best for their needs. There's MANY AV solutions out there and most of them are as good as each other - where ALWIL presently falls down and is probably near the bottom of the scale is with it's after sales support.

Lift your game support wise ALWIL or you _WILL_ lose customers. Avast FREE users may be happy enough to wait 3, 4 or 5 days for a response to their problems, but your commercial users rightfully expect MUCH better service than that.

I read in this thread people saying to meiko that he should be patient because ALWIL are busy right now. Well if ALWIL have any business sense at all, then they would know that a new major release may cause a flood of support requests for the first month or two and should plan for that before making the release. Put on more support staff and above all, tell them to read the support requests before hitting that reply button and sending an answer back that is totally irrelevant to the problem being reported.

Anyhow.. I've had my little rave.  To conclude I congratulate the moderators on leaving this thread open. It takes balls for a company to allow negative threads to remain on the forum and though at first thought people might think it may cause damage to a product, to clear minded thinking people, it shows that the company is not scared of taking and showing a little criticism and show that they're willing to act on it, rather than try to hide it.

Cheers...

Andy

crofty59

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Re: AVAST ARE THIEVING BASTARDS !!!!
« Reply #144 on: March 16, 2010, 05:31:39 AM »
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Welcome back, Crofty59 !   :)


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Thanks CharleyO  :)

Offline mkis

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Re: AVAST ARE THIEVING BASTARDS !!!!
« Reply #145 on: March 16, 2010, 06:10:02 AM »
Hi Andy

You live in Australia. So you will understand when I say that Microsoft had nil support for users of their product until very recently  - since about November 2008 I would say. And still not great. Basically you would have to go to a reseller and/or work through a third party agency, who would most likely end up doing all yr tech stuff. Often you would also have to mesh an MS product range with the software program that yr parent company says that you have to use, because it facilitates their accounting process and physical distribution management, and so on, and we all know those programs are down all the time. And yr tech team have to struggle to keep abreast of these things. So often what it boils down to is how good is yr tech team, or on the other hand, how bad is yr tech team. And you should really measure their performance over time because expenditure on technology is marked by high entry cost, and gains on marginal costs over time (that is, once the cost of a computer is put to work, you may get exceptional performance over time at very little additional cost). Maintenance can be expensive but again you're back to good team / bad team. But anyway, the main point is that Microsoft have had virtually no support service at all until very recently. They have only started setting up their own shops in the US. Until recently, you could only go third party. And still have to. State of the whole software industry worldwide actually.

Now there will be loads of exceptions, but every exception will have a good team not a bad team. You have to speak for yrself, not for 'commercial users of the product all over the world'. You also omit to mention that Symantec products are exorbitantly priced and, outside large corporations (like the public libraries, for example) who can afford to run economies of scale, there is large proportion of users that only run the trial product. But if you've got a good tech team, then anything is possible for yr business. There are some real hotshot teams working out of NZ and will be same in Australia, so you will know about that as well. Good tech team, and you can make use of the cost advantages that are available through using avast product range.

You've been through the thread so you will have read Vince Steckler's post. He is aware of what you are talking about, and absolute certainty they will be working to improve their reception service for customers, because that is what he does (used do for Symantec). Now about the forum, some people come here and searchfindlearn, all good, most times they end up telling you how they fix their problem. Others want you to do it for them, which is okay too, because there are a lot of good people here that can help. Many have not even made an appearance lately. You will know these things if you know this forum. And the forum is monitored by the team at avast so they can provide some help, which they do. However, lately things have been a bit strained at times and I think mieko's post brought that to a bit of a head. Part of this strain is due to the growth of the product. That was already underway well before the new product was released. Then the new product was released. So the forum was inundated with queries, and still is, but nothing like out of control. The kind of people we respond to are still being fixed up, with much the same fall off rate as I’ve always noticed. And still the same old problem, the average user forgets that the problem is on their computer, and expects that the problem is also on our computer, which it is for a little while, until we fix it for them. But if there is nothing we can do, then we are wasting time so we get very short with people. I think I can say fairly that mieko did not suffer anywhere near the full venom that could have unleashed, if fact he suffered only a few scratches, and IMHO came out of it better than he should have. But some glitches in the system came to surface that may not have otherwise. And they obviously thought that was a good outcome at avast. Which it was. They were almost grateful really, which is sign of good marketing skills as you will know. And you may receive a similar response. I don’t know I haven’t read all through the info you provided. I have only so much time in a day (and you can say the same to me), and I have got to go answer queries to users of avast who mainly exist ‘in the wild’ and who have chosen to do their own tech work, and often come to the forum to learn (mostly the queries I answer). Something of a picture of what avast used to be really, an alt product (alternative) that has grown very quickly recently. Once upon a time it compared to and I think performed as an open source product, so a lot people still come to avast expecting free. Well you can still get that, and you’ve still got forum members that like to help people sort their computers for free. The free product is a good product – the best free antivirus by far – but you have to be prepared to do some of the work yrself, show some initiative, and so the user may find they are more competent than they first thought. I’m not sure what’s waiting for me on the forum, I may have got hot and abused half the world – and some of the forum members I think, I can’t remember, I answered yr query first – but I know once I pick up the first call, I will have forgotten most of this post, and be thinking about what is in front of me. Unless, of course, you keep coming back without a broken computer. Then all hell may break loose - or maybe it wont, its very hard to tell. I think avast tends to come out these situations very well, certainly I receive lots of heads up to go with the time I put in. But I would do it anyway because avast has been very good to me, a truly wonderful product, that is most appreciated on this forum. You will notice how easily we migrated to the new product range, and how keen is the intent to find bugs and glitches that may arise in the running of the new products. We don’t come here just to read the words. Anyway, its been quite an effort, and my attention is lapsing - so I head off now do some tech work. Better put in disclaimer.

None the above comments is authorized or sanctioned by the makers or distributors of avast! antivirus product range. Or by avast user forum, for that matter.
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Offline MikeBCda

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Re: AVAST ARE THIEVING BASTARDS !!!!
« Reply #146 on: March 16, 2010, 08:21:14 PM »
Just one comment, mkis, not intended as (serious) criticism and totally unrelated to what you're saying.

Could you, pretty please, try for more frequent paragraph-breaks, to improve readability?  Thanks and best.
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Offline mkis

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Re: AVAST ARE THIEVING BASTARDS !!!!
« Reply #147 on: March 16, 2010, 10:04:29 PM »
Is tiring MikeBCda, and lucky to be allowed to post like that anyway, am somewhat guilty of not helping keep the peace over the last few days. But I do know what you mean, so I keep in mind.
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andrewlen

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Re: AVAST ARE THIEVING BASTARDS !!!!
« Reply #148 on: March 17, 2010, 02:08:15 AM »
G'day MKIS..

Hi Andy

You live in Australia. So you will understand when I say that Microsoft had nil support for users of their product until very recently  - since about November 2008 I would say. And still not great.

Indeed. However that's not really a realistic comparison. Microsoft have (and imo unfortunately continue to) enjoy a huge monopoly with computer operating systems market in Australia, and I would guess the vast majority of the world. So despite their lack of support until a few years ago, there really wasn't any other realistic options for companies to move to based on the level of support they could get for Windows.

In example, Apple MAC have always provided a great stable operating system, however software availability for MACs (whilst very slowly improving) remains poor at best. I'm not talking about general applications here, rather along the business side of things. Not everyone would want to run DOS or Windows emulators if they needed to use Intuit's QuickBooks lines of accounting software for example. There are hundreds of other similar examples I could cite but that's not really the point of the discussion.

ALWIN however, do not enjoy such a monopoly as Microsoft. Whilst they may have come up with a great Antivirus product ( I wouldn't be here if I didn't enjoy the software ) and now moving into the entire security suite side of the market, they have competition galore so it's relatively easy to swap from something like Avast to one of a dozen or more comparable products who can provide better support to their paying customers.

So arguing that Microsoft didn't provide good support and they still did ok isn't really a valid argument imo.


Quote
Now there will be loads of exceptions, but every exception will have a good team not a bad team. You have to speak for yrself, not for 'commercial users of the product all over the world'.

On the contrary, with a database of several hundred commercial clients (both home users and companies) that the company I work for provides IT Support services for, I believe I can, perhaps not speak for, but give a pretty good general indication of how much most value (and rightly expect) an effective after sales support for the products which they pay for on a yearly basis.

Quote
You also omit to mention that Symantec products are exorbitantly priced

I disagree with that completely. Symantec products are actually comparable in price to Alwil products. I personally don't believe their software performance is comparable to the Avast, but that's just my opinion. I'm quite certain there would be Symantec fans who would argue to the contrary.

Quote
and, outside large corporations (like the public libraries, for example) who can afford to run economies of scale, there is large proportion of users that only run the trial product. But if you've got a good tech team, then anything is possible for yr business.

All of that is besides the point.  The point I was making is that ALWIL must lift their game support wise if they are to continue to compete with the dozens of competitors providing the same type of product all around the world. Let's not forget that at the end of the day, all we're talking about here until recently, is an Antivirus solution, not an entire operating system or a product that provides a unique service.

I can honestly say that most of the customers I speak to have never even heard of Avast when I'm asked about a good antivirus until I make them aware of it. Not trying to blow my own whistle, but I am responsible for Avast being the antivirus of choice on hundreds of business workstations and servers in Australia and that's one of the reasons why I'm taking the time out of my day to give feedback of this type.

I want ALWIL to improve where it is clearly lacking, because if my clients receive the same sort of (what could only be described as pathetic) "support" that I recently got from Avast support when I needed it, then it makes ME look like an idiot for recommending the thing in the first place. see my point?

Quote
Now about the forum, some people come here and searchfindlearn, all good, most times they end up telling you how they fix their problem. Others want you to do it for them, which is okay too, because there are a lot of good people here that can help.

I made no comment on this forum (which I think is great from what I've read over the last few days) because it's not what I was talking about. A great user forum is a bonus, but as a commercial client of Avast, I expect to get prompt and reliable support when I need it, not have to go a forum to get the answers I'm looking for. Not only is it far more time consuming, access to help in a forum is not what I've paid for and I believe that was one of the points the OP of this thread was making as well. That's not to say I don't appreciate and enjoy the willingness of the Avast community to offer help to each other. On the contrary, I think it's great.

The remainder of your post I see no need to comment on as I really neither agree, nor disagree, with most of what you had to say.. however I do agree that a few paragraphs would have gone a long way to making it easier to read which I see has already been mentioned. :)

FWIW, I tend to do all my typing in Notepad and then simply transfer it to the board once I've completed what I have to say. Give it a try, you might find it much easier to formulate posts which are much easier to read. Just my personal opinion. :)

Cheers...

Andy

Offline mkis

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Re: AVAST ARE THIEVING BASTARDS !!!!
« Reply #149 on: March 17, 2010, 02:32:19 AM »
I used notepad until I got the bottom of the page and then I switched to Word.

please Andy can you provide proof of yr claims, yr credentials, the name of the company, and whatever else you think sufficient - such as what you would send out to a prospective client, who honestly doesn't know who you are from a bar of soap. I'm sure some of yr clients will visit the forum if they run avast softwares and they can back you up. That's fair enough, isn't it.

You need to understand -
I've been through this kind of thing in New Zealand thanks! Fake AV make the same kind of claims.
avast is well known in NZ but always could get more exposure. Loads of Aussies on the forum.

Everyone downunder wants to be the sole distributor of avast products- its been like that for years.

At least we agree about the product. I just installed the Security Suite over avast! Free and the upgrade went effortlessly - the program requesting that I uninstall the previous version on the fly (albeit with Restart) and then installing and running without the hint of a problem.

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