Avira 10 launched

And there's more phun - avnotify.exe makes outgoing connections to google.com every time it's activated... Hmmm, anyone able to verify

(Not going to allow the thing anyway here, now the popups are gone again once I've forbidden .DLL from running as well, the .EXE itself is not enough any more)

 

why dont you use NoNotifyAvira-V3.4.exe to KILL that nag screen?

 

You shouldn't mention the Trojan (pun intended) here. Well, simply because it's easier for me to run secpol.msc manually and do the the job than disable Avira, run the tool and re-enable Avira again...

 

Trojan?Its FP

I downlaoded trojan from softpedia
~ Removed Link ~

 

I know very well that it's a FP. And commented on the issue as well. I've also submitted the FP to Avira and - of course - received no reply whatsoever about it, why doesn't it surprise me?

Because...

Every splash is sacred.
Every splash is great.
If a splash is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

Let the heathen spill theirs
On the dusty screen.
God shall make them pay for
Each splash that can't be seen.

Every splash is wanted.
Every splash is good.
Every splash is needed
In your neighbourhood.

Hindu, Taoist, Mormon,
Spill theirs just anywhere,
But God loves those who treat their
Splashes with more care.

Every splash is useful.
Every splash is fine.
God needs everybody's.
Mine!
And mine!
And mine!

Let the Pagan spill theirs
O'er mountain, hill, and plain.
God shall strike them down for
Each splash that's spilt in vain.

 

True
~ Removed Link ~

 

Really nice doktornotor really nice

Lets make a ROCK BAND!!!!!!!!

 

Damn... well at least you cannot take the name Rock Band - unless you want copyright issues of course.

 

I'm running Avira 10 Prem. AV on a Windows 7 64 bit. Ever since I updated to Avira 10 I get this "problem"(it's not really a problem, per se, but irritating nonetheless)

I'll be downloading a file and as I'm doing something else(like scrolling on a web page), the cursor will skip around(hard to explain, but it doesn't do it on its own, but as I'm moving the cursor its like its stuck in mud and then jumps to the place where I want to go). I'm thinking this is because the download is taking up CPU usage?

I'm not very smart about this stuff so I have no idea, but it seems like this has just started happening when I installed Avira 10. Didn't seem to have that problem with Avira 9. Of course, I know it could be anything but thought I would see if anybody either had this happen to them or think they might know what the problem is.

 

Well it sounds like what I feared is coming to fruition here. It seems to happen too often these days... people take a perfectly good thing and try to get too "cute" with it. And this applies to many facets of life here, not just computer security. Everybody is trying to fix what aint broken to begin with and intent on re-inventing the wheel. I would have just as soon had another v.9 with a few minor tweaks, improvements and an updated engine. I liked v.9 personal so much that I "planned" (past tense) on purchasing the premium, but those plans are put on hold at this moment.

I see some saying that once you upgrade to v.10 you can't go back... that if you then try to re-install v.9 it will force the update to 10. I haven't tried to upgrade to 10 yet, so can't verify that. I think that would be a huge mistake as forcing somebody to use a buggy product could turn them against your product altogether (and toward that of your competitor). I know that I personally am sticking with v.9 for now, and at the same time am not closing the book on 10. If they can tie it down by the time support runs out on v.9 (9-30-10 as stated), I will purchase it. But if I were forced to make the switch to 10 right now I would instead elect to use another product. Not only should they facilitate the process for people still wanting to use v.9 (as opposed to forcing them to change), but they should think about extending their support for it beyond that stated date as well... perhaps even indefinitely until 10 is fine tuned.

 

Comes up clean on avast!

 

I don't know about the full/paid version but that is not true with the free/personal edition. I installed 10, had many of the common issues, uninstalled it, and reinstalled version 9.

 

I have seen the forced upgrade with both paid and free versions. The official answer is that you had whopping 60 seconds to disable the forced upgrade when getting the upgrade pop-up. Wow, just wow!

~Off topic comments removed.~

 

I got no popup at all. I turned off product upgrade immediately and the first update only updated incrementally to 9.xx but a few hours later, it updated to 10 behind my back.

 

Quite possible. Happened to me as well, the settings not honored and upgrade forced. Users also complain about this on Avira forum (which Avira apparently dislikes )

 

Hmmm, strange, nothing like that happened to me, I'm still happily running version 9 (and I have updates turned on).

 

wow..,,was thinking to go back to version 9.. but i'll be forced to upgrade to version 10.

 

Well... it happens to people. My understanding is:

- if you had product updates disabled all the time, then you are fine.
- if you had them enabled but set to notify and decline the "pre-upgrade" DLL update, you should be fine as well
- if you don't decline it, then you are basically screwed, because Avira will not honor the settings any more and cram the broken upgrade down your throat no matter what.
- default uninstall of v10 and reinstall of v9 still doesn't fix this since I got upgraded once again

So, lessons learnt:

- Avira programmers don't know the semantic difference between update and upgrade (see, 9.0.xxxx -> 9.0.yyyy is update, 9.0.xxxx -> 10.0.xxxx is NOT an update but an upgrade, easy, wouldn't one think?)
- they just love staring at their screens all the time and never leave their computer turned on when they walk away to the restroom or so - since 60 seconds popup is clearly enough for everyone, especially in the middle of the night.
- while 60 seconds prompt is just enough to upgrade without your permission, the setting to ask for reboot must be honoured no matter what - since leaving you unprotected with non-functional AV (and non-functional FW in case of the Suite) is just perfectly fine and expected behaviour from a security product.

Well... once I've finished replacing Avira on all computers I use w/ a different product, I won't feel the need to look back anytime soon, trust severely damaged.

 

(Avira security suite)

My complaint is that the GUI is too buggy. It feels like a beta.

 

Agree Doc. It is very unfortunate for them, because things like this call into question the credibility of their product and their company. That is an even bigger detriment than pushing a buggy product prematurely. Many companies do that. But when people start to distrust you that's the kiss of death. I personally will never use Nortons again because I've seen so many problems in the past with it. Even though I hear the 2010 version is vastly improved (even "good")... I just won't test that theory. Avira could find itself in that category with many users after this.

It's a horrible business practice to force things unto your customer base without their consent, and not provide them with options. And then for good measure give them attitude when they express concern over it. I don't know what they're thinking... unless of course losing customers to competitors is their objective (hard to fathom). Somebody(s) should be fired over this.

 

If it were just the GUI, I could live with it. The list of (most severe) bugs I encountered during one week:

- scheduled scan does not finish and causes a forced reboot due to DCOM service failure
- on-access scan doesn't finish due to the stupid hidden object bug
- updater does not work at all
- you cannot choose any action on malware detection since the thing insists on the quick system scan, which never finishes due to the above-mentioned bug
- "always ignore" does not mean always ignore, it means "ignore until next reboot" at best; occasionally, the choice was ignored here altogether
- OK/Cancel to Cancel/Cancel the Cancellation of a scan is a "wonderful" and greatly intuitive semantics choice
- severe memory leak
- obnoxious scanning of the floppy drive with no media in (several times a minute)
- and, last but definitely not least - total lack of useful support; asking people blindly to post HijackThis log is not what I expect from a paid product, sorry, Avira folks. Nor is adding something to exceptions and/or disabling particular features a solution. Plus, telling "we'll fix this soon" is not even close enough for fatal bugs that make the product unusable.

 

Hi, >>The following was updated to include important details about avnotify.exe. NaClmind

I just joined the forum. Glad to be here.

I can confirm that avnotify.exe calls google (74.125.0.0-74.125.255) during auto-update. Have not seen this behavior during manual update. Interesting. Each time the call to google was made corresponded with the pop-up ad. I made a firewall rule to block the range. I'm on XP Pro so I can use a Group Policy restriction to kill it. My firewall logged outgoing calls to this range three times before auto-update stopped working. Can't post logs though 'cause I forgot to save 'em. Sorry.

Lots of buzz about this and other AntiVir 10 calamities over there at Avira forums. No phun indeed.

I may be looking for new AV soon. ClamWin and BitDefender as fall-back.

Thanks for the heads-up, doktornotor.

 

Epic fail a.k.a. how to drive your customers completely mad.

Since I'm pretty sure it's gonna end up deleted yet again, here's a screenshot. Have they decided to commit a suicide or what on earth is up with those guys?

 

I understand that many people will have problems depending on their setups. It's funny, I never have any of the problems people bring up in the tech support forums. I've heard many times that such-and-such program is buggy, install it on my machine... and it runs like a charm. I also however never put software (particularly security software) on my machine still in it's embryonic stages of development. I also uninstall any previous versions first, clean up left over junk files/keys, and defrag before hand. I personally have not used v10 yet so I'll back off and reserve judgment a bit until I do. I'm going to give it a bit more time to mature, then try to get a free trial of the premium to see for myself (if I can find one).

What I absolutely cannot condone, however, is a product phoning home (or in this case, to Google) without giving any indication as to why it's doing so. That is downright shady. I would like to hear more about this! From what I see a guy in the Avira forum brought it up, then did a 180 later in the thread (perhaps "the man" came down on him?)... and now the thread is dead. Nobody from the company commented on it or gave an explanation. I would like to hear one before I decide to spend money on their product. I realize the culprit (avnotify) applies to the free version only, so I imagine this problem doesn't exist in the premium? Even so, it calls into question the integrity of the company as a whole. When it gets to the point where you can't even trust your security software, it's just not worth it, high detection rates or not.

Just a couple weeks ago I planned on purchasing the premium version after falling in love with personal v9. What a turn of events.