MYFreeAntivirus 2012

[roger_m]

Originally Posted by Cloud

As previously stated, these claims are pulled from the AV-Test.org's tests.

I must of missed that. But I just had a look at AV-Test, and Bitdefender has been getting 100% scores - except for the most recent test.

[huulbaek]

Whilst reputation management seems proper, it's a good idea to be straight about the facts.

What did happen was, that I wrote a review of an MSC product on spywarefri.dk - marking it zero out of five possible. It seems it may possibly be illegal for me to write the review in the first place since our company sells competing products on another site.

Therefore, we pulled the review from the site. There is no court ruling and there was no smear campaign. What was, was an agreement made in court about us pulling the review and agreeing not to post it again. There was no trial, which would also be far too expensive for our small two-man company.

Best regards, Thomas.

[Jim1cor13]

Thank you huulbaek for commenting on this in regards to MSC comments. Always good to hear from both sides so one can make their determination more complete. There remains some unanswered questions about MSC, but I am glad to see both sides comment. I am more interested in their actions rather than just their comments, and I am still unsure about a few things regarding them.

I hope your company does well, no matter how small it is

[zfactor]

Originally Posted by roger_m

The rebate is only for people in the US, so not much use for me. But if I did still live there, then that would be a better option than MYFreeAntivirus.

no rebate needed if you look around there are LEGIT sellers of the real bitdefender for like 15$ or even have seen it for 9$ one time. i would 100% run the real deal for an extra 5-10$

[Jim1cor13]

Well, I bit the bullet, and went ahead and installed Myantivirus, again, to put it through some more thorough usage and testing. Although as I have stated, the size to me is behemoth for an AV application, on my laptop, it uses approx. 970MB of disk space, which includes the backup of each most recent def's after each update, and the BD def's show 296MB. So 592MB so far of this 970MB is actually both current BD def's and the most recent backup of such. Viewing it in this way, leaves the actual program install, apart from the def's mentioned at about 378MB if I did my math properly.

So with that said, I am going through the settings, testing as much functionality as I am able to, and overall, i will give credit where it is due. in spite of detesting the overall disk space used, this is actually performing very well, although RAM usage is large, overall performance with custom on access scanning settings set to all files is very good, so far.

I have a lot more to write, but wanted to give it a much more thorough over view, at least what I experience with it. My main complaint other than disk space, which I understand is typical for BD, which this is definitely BD style GUI that simply has Myantivirus label, is that no matter how I set on access scanning options, I am unable to gain the control I would like over the file disposition, simply no way to be the decision maker.

I have tested the sandbox feature within Firefox, it was flawless and worked very well and smooth, although mouse functionality is limited in this mode, mainly scrolling must be done manually by grabbing the browser scroll bar, which i assume is common?, it is a very smooth process so far to enter sandbox mode on demand.

I will write more after more in depth use and also some stats on RAM usage, which I sometimes get confused over as listed within task manager, but performance at this time and the actual functioning of the software has been good. Typical pages for testing such as eicar.org, and spycar.org are mainly blocked when trying to download the files, with a browser window that states site contains malware, so the web blocking is functioning as it should. Settings within the Privacy control, toolbar function one can set SSL scanning, which fully blocks eicar.org SSL download section, but in general I do not use SSL scanning. With SSL scanning turned off, it simply gives a quick popup stating a file was found, click for details, then disappears so quick, it is hard to actually click it before it disappears. I have on access set to custom settings, to scan all files, scan inside archives up to 5MB in size, which is really not necessary, but I am testing it, and to quarantine the files, which some files it simply denies access to period, which is ok, but still cannot gain the control I normally like to use.

More later as I run through this, but I thought maybe someone would like to read a more in depth review. Just my experience, as I know others here are far more capable of running this through the proverbial mill much better than me, I just wanted to take the time to let it run for a few days, get familiar with it, keep tabs on overall performance, and offer a personal opinion.

Jim

Edit: a quick review of the browser toolbar:
The Myantivirus toolbar use and function within firefox is interesting. I will give them
credit for making it very functional, and unobtrusive. It is seen only by a small tab at the
top of the browser window, positioned left of center. Clicking on it gives some simple
information such as "this site is safe", along with a few very handy quick settings on the
toolbar that can be seen once the small tab is clicked. These settings are: Sandbox-this
allows to enter sandbox mode on demand. Settings-this allows very quick access to the
Privacy control settings with a drop down window, without actually going into the full
settings mode within the application interface. Last feature, On/Off-this speaks for
itself, and one can turn the toolbar on or off.

Edit2: Additional testing and comments:

As far as configuring status alerts, so far it appears there is no tray pop ups such as is
common with many other AV's, all notifications are entered in the Events portion of the
user interface. I have all status alerts set to On, but no tray alerts, only within Events.
This is ok, but I personally like to have a tray alert at the very least upon successful
updating, but that is just a personal preference. In addition, it appears updates are
checked every 2 hours when Autoupdate is On. No alert of update unless it actually
receives an update. So far today, it was autoupdated at 9:25am this morning EST, and
again received an update at 11:20am, so I cannot honestly say it checks every 2 hours,
it may be hourly, but that it actually received an update at the times listed. There is no
setting that I can see that allows the user to set a specific time(s) for autoupdate.
Autoupdate just does its thing, with minimal user interaction, which again is ok. One
can always simply check the Events section in the GUI for any 'status alerts' of recent
events, and you can also delete such alerts if you choose to do so. The Events portion of
the GUI, when the Events tab is clicked, opens up a tabbed interface which contains
status alerts. The tabs are as follows positioned on the left side of the Events window:

Antivirus, Privacy Control, Home Network, and Update.
Current product informaiton since last update is as follows:
Virus signatures: 7495872
Engine version: 7.43099
The above information is found by right clicking the tray icon, and then left click
"about". Additional information is typical and pretty complete, offering the following
info.:

"Product Information", "Antimalware Engine Properties", "Technical Support"
with link to click for the Myantivirus integrated support, "Contact Information" which
includes company data such as web site, email address, and phone and fax numbers.
Last info part is "Purchase Information" and shows a link to mysecuritycenter.com
which when clicked, opens a browser window and takes you to their web site products
page to purchase.

Now reviewing to check for event viewer errors. This is not the Events portion of the
program, but the Windows event viewer found under Administration Tools. I found
several that I wonder about, and have checked on. One is under Security Auditing, and
is Event ID: 6281 This explanaiton from eventid.net:

"Description:
Code Integrity determined that the page hashes of an image file are not valid. The file
could be improperly signed without page hashes or corrupt due to unauthorized
modification. The invalid hashes could indicate a potential disk device error." The file in
my case is avcuf32.dll, which is "Bitdefender active virus control user mode filtering"
library...which leads me to a mention about BD in this case, and the outcome...which
may or may not have been the same file, but it is the same error...

They also stated: "In one case, the software mentioned in the event (BitDefender) had
the wrong hashing information and the vendor fixed it by releasing a new version (from
version 10 to version 11). The vendor also said that at least in their case, the event can
be ignored as it will not affect the functionality of the software."

Apparently, it is not yet fixed, and Myantivirus product version is 15.0.38. Being that to
BD, it is something that can be ignored, I would assume most who would see this type of error
would assume a problem with the software, but must not be because it is still
not fixed. So we will 'ignore' this event according to BD since back at version 11,
realizing that most of us are aware that the Event viewer does do a good job, but some
of it can be safely ignored. Evidently, this is the path BD took regarding the same event
viewer error I am getting with one of their clones, only this is version 15, not 11.

Next error in the event viewer is dealing with VSS writer, which surprises me, but at this
point I will have to assume it has to do with entering sandbox mode...so I opened the
firefox browser, clicked on the toolbar, and entered sandbox...then checked event
viewer, and yes, I confirm it is part of 3 errors that are reported when entering sandbox
mode in the browser.

Here are the errors reported:
Event ID: 512 - The Cryptographic Services service failed to initialize the VSS backup
"System Writer" object.
Details:
Could not open the EventSystem service for query.
System Error:
Element not found.

Event ID: 257 - The Cryptographic Services service failed to initialize the Catalog
Database. The ESENT error was: -1032.

Event ID: 256 - The Cryptographic Services service failed to initialize the Catalog
Database. The error was: 5 (0x5) : Access is denied.

Event ID: 7026 - The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load:
bdselfpr < For this error, being that it is a self protection module for BD, I went to device
manager, under view clicked, "Show hidden devices", expanded "Non-Plug and Play
Drivers", and found the reported driver 'bdselfpr', actual file is 'bdselfpr.sys'. I right
clicked and clicked Properties, and found this to be started, with startup type as
"System". At this time, I will assume I could change the startup type to "Boot" and likely
resolve this issue...or make it worse...so instead of trying it, I will assume it would fall
under the category of "ignore" once again, as there may be a reason for it to be set to
start type as "System" instead of "Boot". Fact is, when I checked this drvier service, it
was started and running, but evidently not quick enough that it is being reported in
event viewer as failing to load. Potential fix would be trying to start on "Boot" instead of
"System".

Ok for now, there are other issues, but nothing that is hindering the application from
doing its job so far. The worst resource usage up to this point, is during and after an
autoupdate check...when 'vsserv.exe' and 'updatesrv.exe' again, BD files, crank up the
CPU usage to approx. 40 - 50% for several minutes, and if an actual update is found and
installed, it can take a bit for it to calm down, and this processing of the update quickly
eats up "free" RAM, approx. about 400MB worth on my laptop, (which is a DELL
Inspiron E1705, 2GB RAM, 160GB SATA HDD, running Win7 Pro I installed back in Nov.
2009 after it had originally came with Vista, I apologize for not stating this in the
beginning as to what I was testing it on.)

So far stable, other than the issues reported and appears several can be "ignored"
according to BD info. I have found, but still more research to do and simply use it for
awhile.

I hope this helps someone in some way. If there is anything 'bad' that I think should be
noted, I will add to this post, otherwise, my eyes are tired, and i am going to let the old
laptop take a rest. I will say Myantivirus appears to perform decently up to this time,
can be heavy in some cases as noted, especially during autoupdate function, and after
running and browsing several hours, etc., although RAM is eaten up, cached, etc.,
performance does not appear to be hindered. Updates are frequent from what I can tell
according to its Events alerts. Today, since this morning upon first update was 9:25am,
there has been a total of 4 actual updates today, with several autoupdate checks in
between. But I still do not know how often it checks, but it is often enough and cannot
be modified, at least 'technically' modification of this is not offered.

One final note: After reboot, the Security auditing in event viewer still reports the Event
ID: 6281 as noted above, file reported again as 'avcuf32.dll' and questions this files
integrity, which as far as I know, BD says to ignore this event instead of fixing the issue.
If BD says ignore, then it shoud be viewed as a non-issue, although i do not get this
event with any other file on my system, only this BD file.

Bottom line for me: I still think
it is a bloated application, but it does appear to do the job it was developed for and it
does it well. Your mileage may vary...

Have a good weekend!

Jim

[Der Alte]

Don`t forget to read the Terms of service - End user licens agreement, maybe there could be some surprices (the pay versions)
- http://www.mysecuritycenter.com/gb -

[Jim1cor13]

Originally Posted by Der Alte

Don`t forget to read the Terms of service - End user licens agreement, maybe there could be some surprices (the pay versions)
- http://www.mysecuritycenter.com/gb -

Good point and always wise to review this info, especially this part that does cause one to wonder, and would be worth clarifying. Maybe Mysecuritycenter can come back here and be the one to clarify whether or not at the end of 1 year of free subscription, *if* it will become a pay product. I doubt this according to what MSC stated here on this board, plus the fact that the version some are using was not a "paid product" at least at this time, but this TOS appears at least to me, to be worth getting some clarification on. In addition, MSC stated in their post here it was their decision at this time to allow free users to basically obtain the paid product "Myantivirus" instead of what was offered called "Myfreeantivirus", for which they did issue free 1 year license for.

I hope in the case of those who downloaded what they thought was the free version and were actually receiving the paid version, with a 1 year free license will simply be renewed for another year free and receive no surprises. It does not appear to affect those using free products, but technically, the version "Myantivirus" would normally have been the paid version. I guess we will see.

Thank you Der Alte for bringing this issue up. It would appear to me the TOS subscription terms are for those who bought their product, not those who received the free. Previous comments in this thread suggest renewing the free version is a simple renewal when the current license expires, such as the same procedure used by other 'free' AV vendors. Will this change after the first year, and/or will the end user have to uninstall Myantivirus and then install Myfreeantivirus? It appears to be something that may need some clarity:

Section 10 fro MSC TOS:

10. General terms, Subscription terms & prices

MYSecurityCenter a strong believer in openness, ease and simplicity.

Subscribing to any of our products and services is straight forward, not complicated and it is our goal to clearly display ALL our terms and prices.

We have no hidden extra fees - No extra costs and absolutely no binding period.


Delivery policy

A delivery will be provided after your order is placed and payment has been cleared.

If you have decided to pay with a credit card then you will receive the installation details by email within 24 hours.

If you have selected to pay by cheque or bank transfer then your product may take up to 20 days to be delivered to you as to allow appropriate time for the payments to be cleared.

If you have purchased MYSecureUSBDrive or Backup CD please expect 10-14 days for delivery.


Refund policy

There is no risk purchasing any of the MYSecurityCenter products or services as we proudly offer all our customers a "100% Satisfaction or Money-back guarantee” throughout the whole subscription period. We believe we are the only vendor in our industry that goes that far for our customers. We simply don’t want to have any unhappy customers! However any refund requested later than 30 days from the purchase will incur a 10 GBP admin fee. This admin fee is purely to cover payment provider and payment collection company fees.

Refunds are not applicable on trial subscriptions or renewals.


Subscription

All MYSecurityCenter products are sold as a yearly subscription, this is irrelevant of the initial promotional period and exclusive of PC Help & Support and Extended Download these will continue as a monthly renewal.

All subscriptions are valid until the end-user has unsubscribed.

All subscriptions will automatically be renewed by MYSecurityCenter until unsubscribed by the customer.

If for whatever reason MYSecurityCenter cannot automatically renew the subscription, the customer will be informed that a renewal has not been possible and if not renewed manually by the customer the subscription is to be considered ended.


How to unsubscribe

Customers can at any given time unsubscribe to our products and services. If you want to unsubscribe please send an enquiry to the support team support@mysecuritycenter.com) and they will be happy to assist you.

With MYSecurityCenter it is of course FREE to unsubscribe, there are no costs attached at all and there is no binding period.

Unsubscription for the next subscription period shall just be submitted BEFORE the current period ends. If unsubscription is submitted after the expiry it is considered that the new period is already accepted and active.
---

[MYSecurityCenter]

Dear all, sorry that it seams that Mr. Huulbaek just cant stop, but it is not the first time we see it!

Facts are:
1. Mr Huulbaek din not DECIDE to pull any review, he was forced to pull it by Danish court of law.

2. There was indeed a court ruling. We have added a link to our blog in previous post on this forum, where you can see a copy of the OFFICIAL ruling, where the judge clearly forbid Mr. Huulbaek and his company´s review and comments about us. It can also be requested by contacting Danish court.

3. There was a court hearing, both parties participated and both was called to do so. Mr. Huulbaek and his supporters and company was ORDERED to remove their review and false comments about MSC and some of its senior executives. The review and the content was found; quote "far beyond what is legal in Denmark and not even necessary to try legally, what has been done is far beyond what is legal"

4. Fact is also that Mr. Huulbaek and some of their supporters haven't followed the courts ruling and that MSC will and unfortunately have to spent even more time to get their actions stopped!

reg, MYSecurityCenter

[Jim1cor13]

Hi MSC

Thank you for coming back to the forum. If you could, please review the most recent questions regarding the annual subscription renewal for "MyFreeantivirus" for which most of us received free the paid version "Myantivirus" along with a free license for 1 year per your decision according to your post here in this thread. Will those who rec'd Myantivirus with 1 year free license be able to keep this version after 1 year and simply renew the free license at the end of the period, or will it be an automatic renewal of the free license? The concern was simply that after 1 year at time of renewal, the 'free' would change possibly to having to pay to renew "Myantivirus" and/or uninstall and download the actual 'free' "MyFREEantivirus" at renewal time. Thank you for any clarifications you may provide

In regards to Mr. Huulbaek, only your company and him know the details of your dispute. Personally, in all due respect, I may be out of line here, but I would rather have you and Mr. Huulbaek handle these matters outside of Wilders forum. That way you can focus on answering and addressing questions/concerns regarding this thread and your product(s).

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

[Cloud]

Mr. Jim sir, they have already done so! They mentioned this in their first post...sort of.

Post: http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showp...&postcount=212

Took out many of the paragraphs in the quote and highlighted important part in bold.

Originally Posted by MYSecurityCenter

We will very soon launch a completely unique product/concept based on Bidefender technology called CharityAntivirus on www.CharityAntivirus.com. But we are not quite ready yet, maybe 1-2 month and we are ready to launch.

So atm we are giving MYAntivirus away to people coming to the MYFreeAntivirus page, we believe it is the best interim solution we have. In quite a few countries we rank very high on Google when people search for "Free Antivirus" and "Gratis Antivirus". E.g. on Google.dk we rank no. 2 and above Avast and Avira on "Gratis Antivirus" and only AVG ranks higher. We are on page 1 in many other countries.

[Jim1cor13]

Thank you Cloud Appreciate the reminder my friend! So many pages to this thread, it is easy to get somewhat lost LOL

It appears those using the product, it will remain free. Even better being that the version is actually the paid version, so it is "full" and free. Now, if it just did not suck up so much disk space....

Have a good night!...thanks again

Jim

[Cloud]

Originally Posted by Jim1cor13

Have a good night!...thanks again

I will! Once it gets dark here. 16 hours ahead (from Pacific time, anyway)!

[MYSecurityCenter]

Hi again.

It was never intended that our product should be free for more than 12 month. As explained we will launch www.CharityAntivirus.com soon and here we will ask all users to pay a renewal fee every year. Again people will be able to decide the amount themselves and all money will go to charity.

When it comes to the licenses you have all got, we will not and of course cannot renew as you haven't paid for them. In order to automatically renew we need to have had your credit card details first.

When it comes to renewing our customers in general our procedure is to prompt the customers 7 days in advance of any renewal and let them that they are up for renewal. What the price will be and when we will renew them. We then also instruct them what to do and how to unsubscribe if they do not want to be renewed.

Secure regards, MYSecurityCenter

[Der Alte]

I hope you excuse me here, but I am a little interested in history in generelly and therefore curious when it comes to MySecurityCenter`s invitation, earlyer in this thread, to visit there blog. If I do so and click on the May 2010 Arkives, I am not able to find the same two links regarding UPDATE and Official Comments, as on the Danish side under Arkives, May 2010.
Is there only a Dansih translation of these alvaliable ?

[Der Alte]

The more I read about the story, back from the early 2010, the more I realize that MSC at that time, offered a pretty unfinished security program, and not only to users i Denmark but in other country`s as well.
It was big and heavy on the system, diden`t funktion proberly, and above that the detection was rather poorly, witch MSC afterwards admitted and wrote about on there danish blog.

The end user license agreement (eula) was problematic as well, the user had to unsubscribe at least 3 month`s before the current license period ended, otherwise an automatic license renewel would take place.

Another thing was and proberly still excist, is the coorperation with third part companies/partners, allowing them in advance to registrate different informations about the user and on that behalf sending them e-mails of different kinds. The user personally has to unsubscribe to theese companies in order not to recieve any e-mails.

Last and as far I read and understand it, there wsa not a court order rule as clamed by MSC, but a woluntary agreement in order to take certain steps realated to the test results where MSC recieved 0 stars out af 5 possible.

Of this i mind, one can only hope that MSC with there new Internet Security program, witch integrate a bitdefender engine, preforms a whole lot better, - but as written above, it is still big and a kind of heavy on the system.

[narenbisht]

Is there a bug or it is too slow quarantining/deleting malware?

I did a righclick scan of a folder containing 211 malware. The scan completed in 1 & half min & detected 156 malware but quarantining/deleting took a lot of time app. 50-60 min.

Anybody tested this?

[TNO_sec]

@ Der Alte
Looks like most of the "shady" information about MySecurityCenter is in Danish but some of it has recently been translated. You might find it interesting.

MySecurityCenter versus freedom of speech – Oktober 2010

MySecurityCenter threatens with lawsuit – April 2011

Looks to me like their product may have improved big time! Not sure I would trust them though..

[AMIGA500]

Think i would pass on this and just go for the BD free antivirus.
Downloads are quite large also.

[roger_m]

Originally Posted by Beethoven1770

Think i would pass on this and just go for the BD free antivirus.
Downloads are quite large also.

But this is the same as the paid Bitdefender, so if better than the free BD.

[narenbisht]

When downloading the free version it mentions 12 months.

Have anyone tried it for more than 12 months & if it was free or disabled?

[roger_m]

Originally Posted by narenbisht

When downloading the free version it mentions 12 months.

Have anyone tried it for more than 12 months & if it was free or disabled?

It's not free, but I presume that if you have a licence for it, there is no expiry of it.

[doktornotor]

They also make an Android "antivirus" - called MYAndroid Protection Antivirus. Results of AV-TEST:

There are also six programs that have received a special award. They are not able to recognize a single one of the 618 types of malware. The only thing they do is to take up space on the Android device. The six at the bottom are Android Antivirus Android Defender, LabMSF Antivirus beta, MobileBot Antivirus, MT Antivirus and MYAndroid Protection Antivirus.

See here (DK)/Google Translate.

Would not touch any of their "products" with 10ft pole.

[Tarantula]

By entering into this Agreement, you agree that the Company may collect and retain information about you, including your name, telephone number, address, email address and credit card or bank payment information and any other information that the company may require from time to time.

No, thanks.