Some of you asked if it will show once, or persist. For this campaign, it will show just once (let us know if you see it more than once). If this campaign made you worry we're heading the same route as AVG please rest assured that we're still very sensitive to being too aggressive in promoting our paid solutions; we seek a reasonable balance.
After reading the entire thread, I've registered to throw in my two cents.
Long time user here. Last Thursday we recommended Avast! to a family member who was complaining about Norton nag screens - the next day we received the
first Avast! advert. Thanks for that!
Twas hard enough to convince a know-it-all-no-nothing that a free product was better than their crappy nagging Norton pre-install.
I have always recommended Avast! in my many years of use (at least 6 years now) and some of those ppl have even purchased the pro product. So from free users you gain
enthusiastic word of mouth and there ain't no better advertising than that -- not to mention the largest user base in which to expand your virus definition DB. Free users add value to the worth of your pro product.
Less free users --> less word of mouth --> less notifications to your virus DB --> less effective product --> less purchasers of your pro product.
You know this.
And the evidence is here -
http://www.avast.com/en-au/free-antivirus-download#tab1As to your assertion in the above quote that
"for this campaign, it will show just once", well I'm here to
let you know it's now appeared
twice in one week (at least three times actually, because the first time we did a reinstall thinking our Avast had been compromised).
I then note that later in this thread you say "we're considering sending out this specific popup (the $9.99 Summer promo) once more." - received that 2nd one (technically 3rd!) today. So there you go, didnt take you long to change your mind from "just once" to
just once more, yeh? How many more? Can we "rest assured" that you have used up 2 out of your 4/6 per year already?
Hubby also says he has received the promo more than the 3 times in the past week and is wondering if the feature is being exploited, possibly remotely, since you assert the promo has only been sent twice.
I concur with others ... this would not have been so bad if it werent
orange, the warning colour of the software -- fine if a person is computer savvy and may finally decide to check authenticity on the forums, not so great for noobs and first-timers. At the very least use the info popup colour,
blue. After all it is info, not a warning or alert. Also consider an opt-out check box.
I'd hazard a guess there are many reading this forum who wont bother to register and voice their opinion, and they will now identify little difference between Avast! and some other ad-supported product. And there will be several more who wont visit these forums at all.