Webroot Acquires Prevx

Indeed

 

For the few dollars they get per install! But Like I said I installed the latest Webroot AS with AV on a VM and there is no sign of the ASK Toolbar or any other Toolbar!

TH

 

this cant be good. I ditched webroot products ages ago due to the programs been bloated and buggy. I hope webroot dont ruin prevx.

 

Much ado about nothing ?
No, but this acquisition or merger or whatever you want to call it means nothing inherently good or bad unless performance suffers.
Performance in terms of detection, removal, competitive subscription price points, continued availability of a free version, and excellent customer support.

I've not been married to either brand.

I purchased Spy Sweeper back in 2007 but did not renew.

I won a free one year subscription to Prevx from Wilders but gave it away because I knew from past experience it conflicted with Sandboxie.

Prior to losing your lunch over this, give it a chance.
As others have stated, this is the nature of business, and based on the world economy as well as developing trends, it's probable for many others to disappear in a relatively short time.
I wouldn't be at all surprised to see companies specializing in a single product such as Spybot, Ad-Aware, Spyware terminator, Returnil, SoftSphere (Defensewall), and Macrium to get snapped up.
No inside information, just a hunch that their demise is inevitable.

 

Yep, that's the kind of reaction I expect from this forum (Wilders).

 

Wow, surprising!

 

Can I have your stuff ?

 

As Hawki previously stated, we aren't talking about the TOS here but what is "MORALLY" right and wrong!

To take Overangry's money on a "3 year" subscription a "week" before this announcement "which they kept the lid on" was "MORALLY WRONG!"

The way this entire situation should of been handled "Morally" is that once any discussion began between these companies, all multi-year licences should of been "frozen" until after the announcement.

Completely, 100% wrong the way this has been handled!

 

Joe, all I wanted was some time to see what happens with Prevx.

The unsigned, two lined possibly automated response I received, was CHEAP, and only angered me to say the least.
Even rouge software distributors would sign off with, regards Peter, Paul or Mary

As I don't know with whom I corresponded with, I will refer to it as "person" assuming it lives...

I have already emailed person and said, quote:

Hi person,
disregard my cancellation of license.
Keep the money and prosper!

Person has not yet responded, is there a need to?

Now, that could have been handled quite differently, with better interpersonal skills and better customer relations.
Person may have said, we would be sorry to see you go...
You do know, Prevx will remain as is we will however, in the near future...
Beta testing will be commencing for our new release of version 4...
If you are still interested...BLA BLA BLA

I have to say here in Australia, almost every employee of any business or enterprise will possess the skills and resourcefulness to calm down, reason and communicate skillfully with any client, to keep then onboard, regardless of how difficult the situation is

Have your employees received but one directive from their new owners: NO REFUNDS TO ANYONE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!

Now that my rant is over.

I no longer wish for a refund.

I chose Prevx, after one year of trying countless AV's and combinations.
I chose Prevx, because it is a remarkable product(that will not change over night).
I chose Prevx, because of it's outstanding customer support(?)

My gut feeling says, I have wasted my money.

But I will give you the benefit of the doubt, prove me wrong

I sincerely wish you and the Prevx team the best, and I hope all works out for everyone involved.

TIME WILL TELL

Thanks to those members who had supporting words

 

Yes it was handled very poorly, and is morally corrupt.
This should never have happened and has left a sour taste in my mouth.
But I will give them a chance to prove themselves.
I sure hope that they never forget that there is a person on the other-side of their monitor that they are communicating with.
It's as Hawki says "morally", I find it sad that individuals and companies, almost always fallback on some contract or TOS.
I have posted to prevxhelp on this forum, regarding my feelings on this issue.
Thanks for your kind words and support, the days of a handshake and the hope of a long and enjoyable business relationship, seem to be a thing of the past..sigh

 

Let's just wait and see...shall we? We can discuss here and bring out valid and interesting points/arguments based on either assumptions,facts or past experiences but that won't change the decision/issue at hand. The merger/acquisition has been made. All parties have their own self-interest at stake here so no matter how we argue it, no one can come to a conclusive statement that everyone would/could agree with.

On a side note: I'm interested to hear from a Webroot representative here since (let's face it) their company's reputation among folks here that's largely responsible for causing this smoking hot discussion. If Webroot really intends to 'bring it on', then this is the right time to do so and clear up all the school of thoughts that has been mentioned so far. Whether or not we choose to agree/disagree or believe in what they say is secondary in nature but importantly, they've got to back up the PrevX team during such a period of time.

P.S. I've had unpleasant experiences with Webroot software before just for mention sake in case people here think I'm trying to be a 'cool dude'.

 

Not at all, and it sounds like your case was handled incorrectly, possibly if our support person didn't have the full details on what the acquisition will mean. Could you PM me your email address so that I can look up the conversation? This acquisition is from a privately held company to a privately held company - there is no disclosure to customers when a deal like this is taking place in private companies so unfortunately we couldn't notify users before hand. However, the fact remains that this acquisition does not change Prevx's operations or how the product performs to the end customers. If this was going to result in an immediate change that would have negative effects in the strength or performance of our software, we would be openly understanding about requests for refunds - frankly, I wouldn't use it if it wasn't strong enough - and that would be the end of the discussion.

CloneRanger has summed up this entire thread the best:

If you read between the lines in the press releases, you'll see what the value of this acquisition really is. This is not a company who is trying to buy out a competitor for a small technology boost, a minor additional feature, or to prevent them from hurting their position in the market. The combined Prevx and Webroot business will produce incredibly powerful software. The goal at Prevx is to remain compatible with every other security solution and do so in the smallest footprint possible. Our goal for Prevx 4 is that it will not be larger than 500KB... yes... kilobytes.

You'll have to put some faith into our company and I do hope I've earned some mileage in my nearly 5,000 posts here - we are certainly not going to abandon any of our customers and neither is Webroot. Most other technology acquisitions in this market have come from companies buying similar companies and then merging in the teams - even with the antispyware vs. antivirus acquisitions, they are still fundamentally the same approach and likely the reason for the anticipated bad taste. Prevx is vastly different from any other security software. While it may sound similar to the marketing that every company is releasing, once you really get under the hood, you see major differentiators and that's where the value of Prevx comes from.

Combined, we're looking to build the strongest security solution that this space has ever seen. We'll be giving out more information in the near future but this is a transitory period. There will obviously be no sudden dropping of user support or a discontinuing of the Prevx products on the market - that would just be bad and illogical for everyone involved.

 

Nicely said Joe!

TH

 

Page42, sorry to see you had such a bad experience with Webroot. I have not used their products in the past 4 years. So i can't speak for their their recent quality in customer service.

 

Does anyone know of any test other than PC mag that have been conducted on SpySweeper in the last couple of years? I saw they had very good ratings in detection, and removal of malware in PC mag. It would be nice to know how well SS performs against rogue security software especially since a lot of AV's are week at detecting it. I would never fall for a rogue software, but a lot of people get taken by it every year.

 

Please don't view this post a personal attack on any moderator, it is not.

You seem shocked at the responses from forum members.
You, by that I mean Prevx/Webroot, yet you are entirely at fault.
The sale would have taken at least 6months to prepare. In that time, not one person from either company thought to prepare a statement outlining the future role of Prevx, its future development, changes.
I am dumbfounded that no one in your public relations department even for a split second, thought of maybe informing it's 12,000,000+ user base, what this sale means for them.
A personal email to its subscribers, a copy posted on this forum, nothing

No, I don't think you care.

All this talk and guesswork could have been avoided with a carefully prepared press release.

You talk of trust, confidence, us being your priority, I still have no clue as to what is going on.
All I have heard is, "trust us" to me that sound like a used car salesperson selling me a $100 car.

Unfortunately it was handled extremely poorly on Prevx/Webroots part, it will take you a long time to regain the TRUST of many subscribers, especially those that have a low opinion of Webroot.

I wonder if those in senior management will even bother issuing a press release of some sort

Respect, and trust...sure

Edit: not 1,000,000 but 12,000,000

 

I'm sorry but the end user is always last to know! We have seen this many times with other products: Comodo & BOClean - AVG & Ewido - Symantec & PCTools - GFI & Sunbelt just to mention a few! Only the future will tell! Hey I paid for a 4 year 3pc license and still have 3 years to go!

TH

 

I have the utmost respect for the work you do here, it was never about trust or faith in Prevx or you.
You mention a press release, I must have missed it. Can you point me to a link, so I can read it.

I would like to put this behind me, I have no grudge or ill feelings towards anyone at Prevx or this forum.
Lets move forward

 

Here you go: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1776707&postcount=3

HTH,

TH

 

We haven't yet released a note specifically to our customers (this will be taking place in the coming days) but in the meantime there are a few articles about the acquisition itself:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/webroot-acquires-prevx-106436478.html (the initial press release)

http://www.scmagazineuk.com/webroot...ased-anti-malware-rival-prevx/article/189955/ (an SC Magazine writeup)

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2371782,00.asp (PC Magazine commentary)

http://news.techworld.com/security/3246802/antivirus-scanning-becoming-inadequate-says-webroot-ceo/ (summary/overview)

 

I have 4 Prevx licenses that i can't renew because they can not be added to my account. This is really a pain in the a$$ when trying to manage licenses when you can't because you can't even add them to your account. I have tried everything, and Prevx can't seem to help me. I did exactly what Prevx ask me to do, and it did not work. This was months ago, and i finally just gave up because i was wasting too much of my time. They have to come up with a better system for associating licenses with an account.

 

This is OT in this thread but I agree. Perhaps the big brains at Webroot, rather than tinker with Prevx's technology, would like to address this issue. Who knows, it might lower the steam pressure around here!

 

Hey Joe, please urgently release a new build ... we need another amusement .

This discussion becomes vague now and in certain degree deviates from principle of the subject. I believe that everybody, including me, who has had something to say to the topic, has already done this. Almost 200 posts speaks for itself. BTW this thread ranks currently on 3rd place (excluding the sticky threads) as regards number of posts and keeping the frequency of posts it is probably not so far to become the top thread .

 

Prevx is giving itself away a lot

example

Prevx > Hitmanpro
Prevx > McAfee
Prevx > Webroot

xD

 

That sounds really good and is exactly what many people here wanted to hear (and to believe in).

Under the premise right above (keeping it compatible, small and fast) that sounds even better. Let's see how this works out.

Now I am sort of relieved, despite the word 'sudden' .. or I hope so!

Right. But mergers unfortunately often lead to the dumbest decisions, that's where the fear is coming from. Or was.

Now please make us all happy, concentrate on Prevx 4 without delay so that Webroot very soon can earn money with THAT while then developing the combined product. PLEASE!