Kaspersky Users - Beware

I just wanted to alert people to an unfortunate situation with the Kaspersky Anti-Virus company. Having used and recommended the program for several years, I recently purchased another license for an additional computer. After downloading and installing, I discovered that the registration key was quite old. I contacted Kaspersky (home office tech support in Russia) with my purchase/registration info. They sent an updated key. However, it didn't work in the program.

But I noticed one other thing: within the key, which I opened to check with my word processor, was my personal information -- name and address -- in plain text. I wrote back about the key file not working and that I didn't want my personal info in plain sight in the file (which would also show in the Help | About screen of the GUI) because of the possibility of theft by trojans or remote access programs.

They sent a new file that did work. However, this time not only did my name and address show clearly, but also my phone number. I again wrote, telling them my objection to this and asked for a new key either with phony information (which I supplied them with -- so they could still ID me if needed) or to encrypt the personal info. I explained that since I've been computing I've been careful to never input any personal information into the computer unless it's temporary and in a location which allows me to shred all evidence of it, including the registry. I mentioned that such personal information being so visible is a privacy risk and that this is something that should be avoided -- especially from a security/privacy-product company. I even told them I was a longtime user and supporter, making recommendations to others. The letters were civil -- no anger intended nor displayed.

It appears that Kaspersky isn't too concerned with users' privacy. I never heard from them again. I requested and received a refund from the seller, Digital River. Bye, bye, Kaspersky. It's a shame. It's such a good product. But if a company is going to show little regard for our privacy, they're not my kind of company.

If you Kaspersky users check your key files, you may not have a problem. If you got one that is up to date, it may not show anything personal. But if you have to get a new file in the future, beware. And editing the file to change the personal info doesn't work. It corrupts the file (and is shown as such in the GUI) and the program won't work properly.

You may also wish to check other registered programs you have for a similar situation.

Careful

 

My apologies for two identical posts, but I pressed the "preview" button once, went back, then pressed the "post" button once. Perhaps a glitch in the system?

The "remove" button is JS which I never enable. Perhaps a moderator can remove the duplicate. Thanks.

 

KAV is an excellent AV product but their team and R&D is too darn slow. After they released buggy code KAV 4 (4 months ago), they have lost lots of potentional customers. What they are doing about that? Nothing! I have KAV 4 on my computer but I'm also having anightmare with 4.0 versions. It's the matter of time when I am gonna remove it from my system. Currently I am only using one piece-- scanner on demand.

Technodrome

 

Thanks, Paul. I did the Preview, but subsequently did not see a Post button. This is why I went back.

 

On this last post of mine at 6:23p I just hit the Preview button, got the preview, but there were no Post buttons anywhere on the page. I can only guess the button is JavaScript -- which I keep disabled -- and invisible to me. Additionally, when I tried the keyboard shortcut of Alt+S, nothing happened except the default "ding" sound of Windows. Then I tried pressing the Go button at the lower right corner next to the drop down menu of forum choices. Nothing.

On the Post Reply dialogue box I also see following both the Add YABBC tags: and the Add Smileys: "browser not compatible with these buttons".

Again, I'm guessing JS. And as you can guess, <g> I'm not a fan of JS on websites since experienced site designers have said sites can be constructed and made fully interactive without JS. With so many exploits of the ActiveX, Java, and JS, I keep them permanently disabled. No personal disrespect intended. I do appreciate the opportunity to post. In the future I'll just use the Preview button as the Post button since that's how it seems to work for me.

I'm using W98SE and IE 5.0.

 

I use Kasperksy Anti Virus Personal Pro 4 and I still can recommand KAV. The last update (Monitor 4.0.1.67; Scanner 4.0.1.87) works without any problems on my system (C433, 256 MByte RAM, Win2k).

wizard

 

Hey Wizard, I am using the same version as you and I have a question.
Ever since I installed this newest version, when I open up my file explorer, which is Power Desk by Ontrack, it takes a long time to open up. Also folders that have zip or rar files in them open very slow.
Do you think it is safe to disable scanning compound files in the Monitor settings to speed things up a little? I assume that is the problem. I only installed the Monitor, Scanner, mail checker and Updater.
I appreciate any thoughts on this.

 

Is there anway to kill the Splash Screen?

 

Try it on XP! KAV Monitor freezes computer till death...

The only version that works well on XP is from Swiss site 3.5 KAV version.  

 

Installed it a few month ago on a WinXP PC. No problems with KAV 4. But there is a problem I noticed while installing KAV 3.6 and I think this issue also exists in KAV 4: The service was not registered correctly. A deinstallation and a reinstall did not fixed it. But the solution for that was quite easy. There is a tool on the Kaspersky ftp-server called 'kavremove.exe'. This little tool kills the whole KAV installation. After I used that tool KAV works perfectly. Also you should take care that you use the latest version (KAV Monitor 4.0.1.67).

wizard

 

No not that I know.

wizard

 

I would say disable the 'scan archives' option. This is not really necessary for protection. The most important one which should not be disabled is 'embedded objects'.

wizard