Vipre's false "Lifetime" claims...

To make a long story short.... A couple of weeks ago, my laptop's drive had failed. The hard drive was then replaced with an Intel SSD. After reloading everything to the new drive.... I've noticed that I couldn't activate Vipre with my "Lifetime" Lic. At that point, I decided to place a call to GFI. After about 30 minutes on the phone with them, I'm told that the "Lifetime" license can only be activated once.... After explaining to them about the hard drive failure and the replacement, they would not budge. They kept telling me that I would need to purchase another license..... for the same PC.

When I originally purchased my license, this was stated in the PDF file that they had sent me:


VIPRE Antivirus Premium Unlimited Home
Site License
PC Lifetime License

Now, if this is not missleading.... I don't know what is. How can a company such as GFI sustain it's reputation with such False statements.

For anyone who is planning to purchase their "Lifetime" License..... better hope that your drive or motherboard never fails.

 

agree with you my friend and this goes for all the antivirus vendors that do bad bussiness

 

There had to be more than that in the purchase confirmation email? What about terms and conditions?

 

Terms and conditions were not listed...

I wish that I have known this before...

 

Take your complaint to the top, henryg.
Send the CEO some email.
His name is Walter Scott.
Last time he logged in here at Wilders was a year ago.
He had this to say...

Sounds like an open invitation to me.
If I had anything I needed to get off my chest, I'd direct my efforts at the guy who is in charge and was here asking for input.
HTH

 

Oh, don't blame yourself. Even i, thought that "PC lifetime", would be tied to something like the motherboard, which is, let's say, the "heart" of a computer and the less often upgraded item. Apparently, after your experience, one should suspect that any hardware change could trigger the "death" of the PC and thus the license.


My deepest condolences...

 

Even though if it was not stated anywhere, it would be bad company practice and this should be argued, I can't agree with people who think that if they pay you once, you must serve them for all your lifetime. To make it clearer, lifetime licenses are not something you can rely on many years or long time. Lifetime licences are for made for marketing. How can the company survive with no income if you pay them once and expect updates and support after 7 years (for example) ?

In my opinion it would be just spare time and it wouldn't be considered well if you argue with their CEO about such a small amount money. I don't know how much VIPRE AV costs but for sure it is not that much. Breathe 3 times, forget it and go ahead

 

I actually thought that lifetime would mean that the license would be valid/would allow upgrades for as long as the product exists.

I know of one program that works this way, and which I use. Precisely the reason why I got it. I also have reactivated it a few times already. From time to time, I like to start a fresh Windows system.

I suppose not all companies have the same definition for lifetime licenses. This definition should be the standard IMHO, and consumers protected by law.

No wonder many people prefer to use pirated versions of whatever software they want to use. If they pay, they end up being robbed.

 

Yes, me too, until i had stumbled upon Vipre's "PC lifetime" license. By lifetime, i always thought of "free upgrades for as long as you or the program exists". Because, theoretically, you can die before the program does (knock on wood). And since licenses are usually personal... If you die, the license also does.

I mean, the "lifetime" in the sense that you can use the program for the version you paid, for me is the least one can do. I mean, this is the rule. 99% of the software out there you can use it as long as you like, but without upgrades, yet 95% don't claim this as "lifetime". Some regards this as lifetime and few products call this license lifetime, but for me it's an exageration or an abuse of the term.

The "lifetime" i knew, was like Shadow Defender, Sandboxie, WinPatrol, Twister AV, MBAM, SAS Pro (for when it had), etc. Meaning you pay once and you get free all upgrades. I mean, for example, Faronics AES can be used as long as you like and i think you get a 1 year period over which all upgrades come free. But you can still use it after the 1 year. If that's "lifetime", then what's for example Shadow Defender and Co, that you can upgrade them forever? I mean, there should be some distinction in wording.

The "PC lifetime" was a novelty for me, exactly because i once ALMOST fell into the trap to buy it. But fortunately, i noticed the "PC" in front of the lifetime and decided to dig deeper and found the quite important difference.

 

A Vipre Lifetime lic. costs $99 for one PC.

 

99$ ? And they already tell him to forget about it? Wow... At least they could trade it with a 2 year license as a favour... After all, the poor guy just installed a new hard drive, he didn't change motherboard or even CPU.

 

Maybe in order to stop confusing consumers, there should be a legislation:

- "frozen hardware license" (change anything and it's gone).
- "Lifetime license", for those you can use forever, but you must pay for upgrades.
- "Eternal" or "Neverending" or "God Almighty" license, for those you pay once and get free upgrades forever.

 

There was a thread about this very topic back in June of 2011. I remember thinking back at the time of this thread, that this is not really a very good deal. If any piece of hardware fails, license is over.
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=301062&highlight=vipre lifetime license

 

I had bought Vipre once, on Black Friday and i like it, like the fact it's underdog too. Spiking a bit on browsing, but had nice layout. But they need to review this policy of theirs. At least tie the license only to the motherboard and be explicit about it before one buys.

I mean, if i had bought the Vipre license, i would have been bust within 6 months, since i change often something in the PC. So glad i bought Twister instead. Might have been risky move and not the best AV out there, but plenty for my needs and it's truly lifetime (for only about 25$ when i had bought it).

 

I too swap out hardware from time to time, so if the "Lifetime License" is tied to any piece of hardware, its not so good imo. I currently have licenses for WSA Complete, Bullguard IS and Twister AV. Twister AV is not mature enough for my tastes atm.

 

Yeah, consider that the hard drive is one of the most failure-prone components of a PC. And they nullified his license because his hard drive failed?

Twister 8 is still beta IMHO. But i see it as investment and even if i disabled realtime shield, it would still be more than i usually run. Plus i 've used v7 for more than 1 year, so i see it as "i paid 25 and used it over a year, that's quite honest deal, any more is a gain". And i think Twister has good future ahead of it. At the end, that's the beauty of the cheap (at the time, now it's not so cheap anymore) lifetime license. You 've got issues with it? You set it aside and pick it up again when it's fixed.

 

I also support the "underdogs" like you do. I have 2 Twister lifetime licenses I hope to use at some point. I also agree that it is a beta atm. Twister support leaves a LOT to be desired at this point though.

 

I was going to buy there product (looking to switch from NIS) but after reading this they can forget about it.

 

I agree and it appears that they give priority to the chinese audience, which though, doesn't seem to complain about the CPU usage! Unfortunately, in english for the time being, they couldn't even give a properly translated pdf. On the contrary, in the chinese forum (ftfans.org), they have a dev posting in there and answering to people. But i can't speak chinese, damn it!!!

 

In the long run, as Thoreau observed, men hit only what they aim at… so they'd better aim at something high.

 

Nonsense! There numerous companies that offer free product and survive: AVG, Avast, Comodo, etc.... There are numerous companies that offer lifetime license and also survive: Agnitum Outpost FW (12 years?), MBAM Pro, Sandboxie, Blurdige network Appguard.

Check out this thread: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=336993

I have on purpose excluded Viper AV from the lifetime list.

 

The first time i noticed "pc lifetime" i knew this would cause confusion,
especially for foreigners, and non native English speakers.
Or those who don't read the "fine print", and read what they expect to see.

And i think it can and will hurt a company's name, because of this.
In theory this license can end in one single day ..
If it takes 6 years, purchasers will be happy of course, but in the other scenario....

And i would not be surprised if there are people who think this is misleading advertising.

Especially because brands like MalwareBytes, SuperAntiSpyware, Greatis,
and many more offer real product-Lifetime UPDATES and UPGRADES!!

The reason for me as a professional not to recommend it, i don't want to get in trouble because of wrong expectations.

Were i live a average pc lifetime is 3 years, (before it is replaced),
in that case you better purchase a license for three years.

Or even better a product-lifetime license for Updates and Upgrades

 

Two words: "Fine Print"

IMHO, GFI ruined the reputation of Sunbelt and what it started. I experienced poor customer support with GFI and watched an otherwise promising product get pushed out without improvements.

 

I stumbled upon this old post, where Sunbelt, that had the idea of introducing the "PC lifetime" license, was accepting 1 re-install:

PC Lifetime Service
Is transferable if you upgrade your system to a new platform (like Windows 7 with which VIPRE is compatible)
Is transferable if your computer is damaged or if you experience a hard drive failure resulting in having to rebuild or restore the original computer upon which VIPRE was installed. Sunbelt software agrees to provide a 1-time reinstall of VIPRE to continue the PC Lifetime Service.
Is NOT transferable to other computers/users. This item has a "Single PC License" and is only good for use with 1 computer.
Is NOT transferable if your original PC is sold or transferred to another user, or if components are rebuilt into a new computer.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=278142

GFI eliminated that possibility too?

 

Will never touch them again . What jerks . no matter who is at fault , this is poor . They are ruined as far as i am concerned . STAY AWAY !!!