Prevent Pop-up Ads in free version?

[DavidR]

Well, one thing I learned is that if I ever see another promotion like this and will have to buy a new license at that time, I should find the same offer for US customers and buy from there paying in USD as that would save me A LOT of money. This trend of 1 EUR (or even 1GBP, LOL) = 1 USD is really getting on my nerves these days.

Yes the 1 to 1 parity equation across all currencies wears pretty thin after many, many years of this from all sorts of hardware/software.

[Lisandro]

My personal opinion: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=82027.msg670681#msg670681

[Lisandro]

How often should it present?  (we are worried it didn't show enough - it was a good offer, and it didn't give them too much time to decide). How often can we run a campaign like this? (some of you suggested 4 to 6 times a year).

Give an option for advanced users (maybe at avast ini file) to do not show any at all.
We have blamed a lot with Avira popups and toolbars, AVG offers...
We were proud that we did not have this here.

Thanks again for the great feedback. We're taking it seriously.

Seems I'm the lonely negative voice about it...
But if you're taking seriously, maybe you can:
1. Comment my personal opinions.
2. Fight against business use of avast free (very extended in my country and I'm sure all around the world).
3. Fight piracy more seriously.
4. Release other services (as you've did great with online backup, for instance).

[bob3160]

2. Fight against business use of avast free (very extended in my country and I'm sure all around the world).

Important but really unrelated to this topic. 

[Lisandro]

Important but really unrelated to this topic. 

Related with the Vlk's answer about the need of revenue.

[msgreyberry]

I think the little pop up is perfectly okay You can close it at anytime, and it only appeared once, so it's not as if I care that much.

But my inital response was: "Why is the box YELLOW? Have I caught a virus? D:"

So yeah. Maybe next time use a different colour (like blue or purple or something) so people won't think it's false alarms.

[lord ami]

For me that popup was great. I don't see a reason why it shouldn't be shown. It has a very good offer for avast! Free AV users

[Vlk]

Hi again,

we're considering sending out this specific popup (the $9.99 Summer promo) once more. There's a couple of reasons behind that, one of them being that many people may have seen the popup but didn't have enough time to read it and/or think about the offer (as the popup automatically disappeared in 20 seconds).

Would you find something like this acceptable?

Generally, I'd say the offer is really attractive and does deserve more exposure but of course, at the same time we don't want to irritate our users (like you). Again, it's all about the balance.

Plus, I'd say the toaster popup in avast is fairly unobtrusive (it doesn't steal the keyboard focus, doesn't generate any sounds and automatically disappears after a short while).


Thanks
Vlk

[Asyn]

Would you find something like this acceptable?

Yes, imo.
But (next time) consider to provide a related web-page to the offer, so we can send users there, if they should have missed the pop-up or need more time to think about it.
asyn

[CraigB]

Go for it, if its only going to be something like once a month its fine, you guys do have to generate some income.

[DavidR]

we're considering sending out this specific popup (the $9.99 Summer promo) once more. There's a couple of reasons behind that, one of them being that many people may have seen the popup but didn't have enough time to read it and/or think about the offer (as the popup automatically disappeared in 20 seconds).

Would you find something like this acceptable?

Generally, I'd say the offer is really attractive and does deserve more exposure but of course, at the same time we don't want to irritate our users (like you). Again, it's all about the balance.

Plus, I'd say the toaster popup in avast is fairly unobtrusive (it doesn't steal the keyboard focus, doesn't generate any sounds and automatically disappears after a short while).

Honestly the more it is used the less well received it would be.

Even less so if the duration was somehow ignoring the 20 rule or a users changed settings, e.g. on mine I have it much less than 20 seconds and the only ones of any real duration is the alert and warning pop-up at 10 seconds.

So anyone who has lowered the default settings isn't going to have much time to see and recognise it for what it is, the first time I saw it I wondered what was wrong with this Orange pop-up as I thought it some sort of alert. I had to use the Show last pop-up to both read it and capture the image to report what had just happened in the forums.

Changing the colour to say light blue which doesn't have as frightening connotations (Red or Yellow/Orange), see image of my settings and note the coloured text for each type of pop-up. So should this pop-up not conform to that colour scheme. e.g. Blue as it is essentially an Info pop-up not a warning pop-up.

[Gargamel360]

Well, I can't say I like advertising.  I use ad blockers in browsers, I have a DVR largely to skip TV commercials.  I never received a single ad about AIS when I upgraded last year, and such a thing turns me off from upgrading, rather than encouraging me. 

But....to be honest, I am painfully aware that I have a minority opinion on this.  Impulse buyers far outweigh people like me, a fact I am sure you are also aware of. 

The line you have to carefully tread is feeding this offer to impulse buyers without offending the people who most often word-of-mouth your product, computer savvy people who are often like me, generally anti-ad types who want to make their own decisions on their own time, not be solicited.  Where the happy medium is there, I can't say, hard to gauge it until you go too far.

I can only recommend 2 things; 1: Make an opt-out in the options on a future program update for showing "special offers from Avast!", and 2: Change the pop-up color to something that doesn't imply caution, anything but yellow or red.

[Asyn]

100% agree on the colour issue with Dave and Gargamel.

[=SKY=]

Would you find something like this acceptable?

Yes, imo.

+1 

[ady4um]

Maybe next time use a different colour (like blue or purple or something) so people won't think it's false alarms.

Changing the colour to say light blue which doesn't have as frightening connotations (Red or Yellow/Orange), see image of my settings and note the coloured text for each type of pop-up. So should this pop-up not conform to that colour scheme. e.g. Blue as it is essentially an Info pop-up not a warning pop-up.

Currently:

blue -> info
green -> update
orange -> warning
red -> alert

The current "problem" is that the PROGRAM updates are blue, so changing the offers/advertisements from orange (warnings) to blue probably will lead to much more confusion.

So, using the current available colors, blue should be out of the question in relation to this type of notifications.

An additional color would mean an additional type of pop up, and currently there would be no way to even change/control the displayed time over the tray area.

Hi again,

we're considering sending out this specific popup (the $9.99 Summer promo) once more. There's a couple of reasons behind that, one of them being that many people may have seen the popup but didn't have enough time to read it and/or think about the offer (as the popup automatically disappeared in 20 seconds).

Would you find something like this acceptable?

"We" may accept it, but "We" are not exactly the "problem". Here (frequent) forum users may be more aware of the circumstances.

But millions of other (non forum) users might take a second advertisement (just a few days after the first) as Avast taking/going "the wrong way" (as per their "definition").

Even forum users not so happy about this type of notifications might understand and "tolerate" this one "extra" pop up, but "common" users around the world may not. On the contrary, they might take this second notification as a sign of the expected frequency for this type of advertisements.

An additional group of users are recent new Avast users. They are coming from other competitor's tools, or they just bought their computer and the tech guy recommended Avast Free edition. They are just starting to know it, and they might have the impression that Avast is advertising itself every few days. Or they may misinterpret this advertisement as "do I have to pay to use Avast?, I though Avast Free was really free!" (note that, with no relation to this topic, there are users asking this same question already, after the one-year-registration).

So, the "only" group of users that "may" welcome this second ad is the group of users regretting that they didn't see/read/understand the initial offer, AND they already know by now what was all about.

Births are not so easy. For the first time Avast used this type of promotion. Some adaptation (from both users and Avast Software) should be expected, maybe with some little mistakes during this trip.

IMHO, Avast should leave this first intent "as-is", even when here frequent forum users might "accept" it (including those that were already complaining). First impressions *are* important. So leave this first promotion "as it was".

Learn for the future. The second time should be better. Both Avast and frequent Avast forum users may already know what to expect. Less "trauma". Avast might receive "reviews" and comments about this during the following months. Reviews from users that accepted the offer. Reviews from specialized web sites and other forums. Use that info for the next promotion.

In the meantime, you will have time to evaluate also the technical details, like "color" and/or additional options/controls about this type of notifications. Should it be orange (warnings)? Or maybe the PROGRAM updates should not be blue? Or any other combination.

An additional future consideration could be, what about very new installations? Let's say a new user just installed Avast the same day a new promotion is available using notifications. This new user might be interested in the offer, or maybe the new user might receive the wrong impression: "I just installed Avast and I am already receiving ads?".

In any case, only Avast Software knows how the cake of users is "partitioned", and how much the potential new income from this second advertisement is "critical" so to postpone it or not.

BTW, respecting the "summer" part of the offer is also important, in the sense of PR. That means that users (like "our" Tech for example) will know to trust on Avast word, and that this type of tray notifications, "acceptable for now" or not, are not going to be the first step into more aggressive (not respectful) behaviours.

Generally, I'd say the offer is really attractive and does deserve more exposure but of course, at the same time we don't want to irritate our users (like you). Again, it's all about the balance.

Plus, I'd say the toaster popup in avast is fairly unobtrusive (it doesn't steal the keyboard focus, doesn't generate any sounds and automatically disappears after a short while).

Well, the balance is key. Technically, the tray notification is unobtrusive, yes.

But Avast is giving its "word". An "offer" is an offer. "Summer" is for the summer. If Avast software is "braking" its word in the first round (about something so trivial), and being a "security arena" company, then nothing else matters.

Of course, this is only IMHO.