And Avira obviously locked the thread as it wasn't going anywhere. I don't think his issue will resonate that much here at Wilders, apart from the current reaction he's garnered, nobody is really in a position to solve this problem. Avira in recent years has been plagued by accusations of planting spyware in their products, and at the end of the day if enough people believe it, the results will show with the number of sales and registrations of free versions dropping sooner or later. Avira's marketing won't be so easily swayed by a few people who will judge a company by its alleged questionable principles. The Ask files are not running, they don't communicate with anybody, they are probably there for the user who couldn't give two hoots about toolbars et al. To me it's a no-brainer. Eventually a drop in sales for whatever reasons could be offset by the income generated by the Ask toolbar.
A thief is a thief doesn't matter if the amount it's a dollar or a billion. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/grouchomar122547.html
How can you be so sure? Do we know each other Mr. hammered investigator? -------------------------- https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=2240946&postcount=389
According to this Avira Free downloads have had a significant drop.http://www.raymond.cc/blog/disable-avira-searchfree-ask-com-toolbar-popup-nag-alert/
I don't see how this fighting can be productive. What about civility ? As far as I'm concerned, it's not just about 'ASK'. There have been a number of incidents, Uniblue is just one of those. It appears there has been some shift from technical development of the AV to marketing. Isn't that a fact ? Is it not legitimate to discuss that ? ASK isn't as innocent as suggested. There is truly no benefit for the consumer. That 1 USD or whatever Avira gets for including it is pathetic. Cut costs, increase the price, or send less money to the Auerbach Foundation. Whatever. Why cutting corners and employing shady practices ? That 'others' are doing the same is not an argument. I have moved on. Plenty of other AVs. Not to mention the fact that I don't really need an AV.
That's all you can do really. Use an AV while it's good, and when it becomes undesirable, drop it and move on. That's what I've done over the years. At the moment, I don't even use one at all either...
I really hope the new CEO is not turning things around and he has nothing to do with that marketing approach, as a little birdie told me
I'm not surprised, and as much as I personally can't see any wrong doing with Avira's installations protocols, I can imagine that the whole Ask.com business is very unpopular, and it could damage their image in the long run. It's easy for us to judge from the users point of view, but a company has to pay its employees at a time in Europe (even in Germany) where money is hard to come by (my speculation about Avira). It's also interesting what Raymond writes about the Ask.com toolbar: Honestly, where is the problem?
I think the problem is that we are indeed the user, and we see things from the user's point of view, as we should. In fact, it's not up to us, the users, to see it from the company's point of view, in reality, it should be the company's job to see it from our (the users') point of view, and provide something that the user wants. If the company does that, sales will increase, along with their reputation, and they will flourish. If they fail to do this, they get what they get....
When I said where is the problem, I was referring to the uninstallation of the toolbar, which according to Raymond is as easy as for any program. Now if you think that by offering Avira free with the same features as the premium version and no toolbar is going to increase the sales of Avira premium, it's simply utopian.
I think they should offer the free version with whatever features they deem appropriate, and no toolbar, no junk. Let the premium version have the web filter like it used to, and leave that out of the free, whatever they want. Just leave the toolbar out, period. They'd increase goodwill, and the excellence of the free version would be an advertisement for the premium, as it should be. But again, it's not our job as users to feel sorry for their economic plight and say "yeah, sure, it's fine if you throw the toolbar junk in there too...".
Raymond writes more: All these ppl was wrong? ----------------------------------------- Good questions which no one bothered to answer........
Good Evening! Just an observation...if your Avira...Avast...Avg...you look at the emerging product like 360 Security and Baidu...and all of a sudden your market focus becomes very narrow...very narrow. It's a brutally Competitive Market Place...and The Beat Goes On! And Toolbars Come Off! Sincerely...Securon
as so many other have said that file sits there and does nothing. its just the file to install ask and does not at all mean its actually installed on your system. for that matter you can easily use whatever firewall you have including avira's own to simply block it even. i personally love avira but even i had issues and they seemingly could not be resolved they were not a issue with the ask toolbar but with a sleep issue. i bought three 3pc lic's and moved on. i miss it and wish i could still use it but the issue just never got fixed and it was tested on multiple systems with various config's. sometimes its best to simply move on and im not one to easily say that. i also own 3 other 3pc lic's each good for 3 years that all remain non-activated still until maybe one day they get the issues worked out.
OK 7anon. With Avira free there are 2 possibilities: 1) install it without the web guard/ no toolbar 2) install it with web guard/ + toolbar. In the past Avira free was offered only without the web guard and one had to buy the premium to get the whole thing. Nothing has really changed. With the premium they have introduced the toolbar option (opt out) therefore if you know of it, you don't install it. If the user is unaware of the toolbar or doesn't give a damn about it then there is no harm done, and eventually if advised to get rid of the toolbar, a simple uninstall will bring things back very quickly. Now you (7anon) a user with principles, you don't even want the files sitting there dormant, your kind is probably very rare but significant world wide. What I'm getting at is that Avira's users are all different and might decide according to their needs what type of application to use or to drop Avira altogether. As mentioned several times on this thread Avira will get what they get, only time will tell. The fact that Avira's downloads dropped significantly compared to Avast and AVG doesn't necessarily mean they lost money, as I believe Raymond was talking about the free version.
@ Osaban, I quoted another part from the same article which I found interesting too. Nothing more, nothing less.
