Click Happy

I, against my better judgement, decided to give Avira Free a shot. It didn't take long for me to regret it. As many of you know it is a bear to remove. Does anyone know of a third party uninstaller that can get the job done. I tried Windows via Control Panel and HiBit.

NEVER MIND I GOT IT.

 

Image, image, image.

I found this but can't vouch for it as I've never used an Avira product.

https://www.techsupportall.com/avira-uninstall-tool/

 

For others. How'd you fix it?

 

Avira used to have a dedicated uninstall tool.
Also, I haven't used it myself as I don't use an antivirus, but this has been reported to be a good tool.

Antivirus Removal Tool

Other than that, restore an image for a clean uninstallation.

 

@ zapjb....I don't know what happened. I tried various ways and nothing worked so I reinstalled (twice), went to Windows Control Panel and it finally worked. Up until it finally uninstalled it would partially uninstall.
Thanks Krusty and Hadron.

 

Even if you manage to uninstall it properly, it helps to run the 'Avira registry cleaner' to make sure everything is gone. From memory one can run it as is, but for a complete thorough job one should run it in safe mode (their advice). I did, and never had any problems.
https://www.avira.com/en/downloads#tab_a3_0

 

OK..Thanks Osaban.

 

It never did make any sense to me that a software (of most any sort) would become such a problem for the makers of it to not also deploy a comprehensive full uninstaller that completely removed every distributed file and folder/registry entry and more instead of skipping out on it's users.

 

Me too!

 

@Rainwalker Felt exactly the same way about Avira and as recently as this afternoon Total Uninstall banged out about 99% of the job smoothly. It left behind the Avira installer and the desktop shortcut after running TU's file and registry scans cleaner twice while using TU's option to uninstall with Avira's uninstaller. Total Uninstaller gave the option to uninstall with Avira's "uninstaller" even though apparently said uninstaller may be nonexistent. Go figure. Anyway, absolutely no observable hitches so far. As an aside, now I'm guessing I should stick with TU 100% of the time. I downloaded Hibit two weeks ago and haven't touched it since. But I digress.

 

I've never been able to understand why it is so difficult for software developers to build uninstallers that remove everything.
Surely, they know every file, folder, registry entry, service, scheduled task etc. that is installed with their software, so why can't the uninstaller be made to uninstall EVERYTHING?

 

1. Delete the following folders if they exist:
◦ C:\Program Files\Avira
◦ C:\ProgramData\Avira
◦ C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Avira
◦ C:\Documents and Settings\xxx (user name)\Application Data\Avira

ProgramData & Documents and Settings folders are hidden so make sure that your folder options are set as follows:
Click: Start → Control Panel → Folder Options → View → Show Hidden Files and Folders → OK

2. Download and run the Avira Registry Cleaner toool (#6).

 

At the risk of being accused of being a conspiracy theorist, maybe they don't want it removed?

 

The 'Avira registry cleaner' took care of remnants. And thanks StillBorn. I went back to TU..............UGH

 

I like conspiracy theorists because at least they ask questions about the environment. I was an Avira user for many years, and never had any problems uninstalling the program. I don't think it is easy to remove everything in one go, many AV programs have a dedicated uninstaller when things go south. Avira even advises to use their own registry cleaner before re-installing Avira for any given reasons, furthermore a total cleaning job is achieved in safe mode...

 

TU is no freebie, but it sure is a fine piece of software and worth it imo. Incidentally, check out the relatively new Avast One if you're still in the market for another free AV.

 

I don't dare.

 

I always use Revo Uninstaller. It has never let me down.

 

I wonder what went wrong with Avira free Rainwalker that you uninstalled it ? avira free antivirus or avira free security ??

 

lmao... The joint effort (?) of Norton/Avast this time around bears absolutely no resemblance to Avast AV free, nor for that matter, the AVG AV free of old. I was using Avast free for a while and eventually became bald over all the nonstop in-your-face insistence to upgrade. Switched to Bitdefender and loved it. And now, sadly, Bitdefender is bidding everybody adieu with their free AV. FWIW, what few (evidently a whopping two) YouTube reviews are out there show solid results with Avast One against malware. I've been a happy camper so far.

 

I have never had a problem (AFAIK) by using nothing more than Control Panel's uninstall thingee. Am I being haphazard?

 

I thought most AV's had their own uninstallers.

 

I have had issues with most all of them. There are remnants left behind even with uninstallers. I personally think you install at your own risk. That is not to say there will be big problems generated, but what the hell? Can't programmers have an easy way to uninstall their software?

 

I suppose it depends if the remnants are problematic or not. I suppose the argument would be that AV's need to be difficult to disable or uninstall because of malware. This is why I run Unix.

 

But you can also argue that once installed, they act like malware in some ways. I struggled to remove remnants for months with several of them.