I thought I'd try the free Avira. I noted CR magazine rated (67) it
first among the free anti-malware, but showed a caveat. The catch is
"...it persistently tries to seel you its untested $27 pay version."
Persistent is correct. Good grief. One is practically hounded during
installation. You need to call them to activate it, and provide your
shipping address. A window or two comes up about buying the full
producet. Then they install three components. I immediately took them
off my PD. Done with that product. The product morphed into CyperDefender.

BTW, it's weakest feature according to CR is false positives.
Performance was good. Scan speed was very high. Ease of use was good, as
was resources (whatever that is). June 2010 issue.

Symantec, BitDefender and G Data were the top three (pay) suites.

It was noted that Avira had released a new version (minor revisions) at
the time of the review, but wouldn't change their rating. (MCAfee was
rated #8 with a score of 49.)

Ah, I just got my June 11 issue. Avira had about the same rating, and
McAfee fell considerably to a score of 31.

MSE fell amongst the freebies. Low on net threats.

On 24 May 2011, "W. eWatson" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:

> I thought I'd try the free Avira. I noted CR magazine rated (67)
> it first among the free anti-malware, but showed a caveat. The
> catch is "...it persistently tries to seel you its untested $27
> pay version." Persistent is correct. Good grief. One is
> practically hounded during installation. You need to call them to
> activate it, and provide your shipping address.

Absolutely untrue. You do NOT have to call them to activate. That
statement calls into question your entire review.

Avira Free's main downside is that it throws up an ad when you update
the virus definitions. There are several ways to disable that behavior.

On 5/24/2011 1:47 PM, Nil wrote:
> On 24 May 2011, "W. eWatson"<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
> microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:
>
>> I thought I'd try the free Avira. I noted CR magazine rated (67)
>> it first among the free anti-malware, but showed a caveat. The
>> catch is "...it persistently tries to seel you its untested $27
>> pay version." Persistent is correct. Good grief. One is
>> practically hounded during installation. You need to call them to
>> activate it, and provide your shipping address.
>
> Absolutely untrue. You do NOT have to call them to activate. That
> statement calls into question your entire review.
>
> Avira Free's main downside is that it throws up an ad when you update
> the virus definitions. There are several ways to disable that behavior.
>
Untrue or not, it certainly threw up two different windows that stated it.

The CR review. Not in question at all.

To top this off, I see that it put a CyberDefender in my FF toolbar,
which I noticed. Pure dribble.

In news:irh5rn$50j$(E-Mail Removed) "W. eWatson" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>
> To top this off, I see that it put a CyberDefender in my FF toolbar,
> which I noticed. Pure dribble.

Why would Avira put "CyberDefender," a competitors product, in your
FireFox toolbar?

--
Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN (E-Mail Removed)

On 24 May 2011, "W. eWatson" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:

> Untrue or not, it certainly threw up two different windows that
> stated it.

I don't believe that. And you didn't have to call, did you, so it's not
true. I've installed Avira many times, and I've never had to call. The
company is reputable and ethical. I don't believe they would lie about
that.

What was the exact wording of the message?

> The CR review. Not in question at all.

I'm questioning YOUR review.

> To top this off, I see that it put a CyberDefender in my FF
> toolbar, which I noticed. Pure dribble.

Avira does not do that. They have no connection to CyberDefender. It
sounds like you have other problems that are unrelated to Avira.

W. eWatson wrote:

> I thought I'd try the free Avira. I noted CR magazine rated (67) it
> first among the free anti-malware, but showed a caveat. The catch is
> "...it persistently tries to seel you its untested $27 pay version."
> Persistent is correct. Good grief. One is practically hounded during
> installation. You need to call them to activate it, and provide your
> shipping address. A window or two comes up about buying the full
> producet. Then they install three components. I immediately took them
> off my PD. Done with that product. The product morphed into CyperDefender.
>
> BTW, it's weakest feature according to CR is false positives.
> Performance was good. Scan speed was very high. Ease of use was good, as
> was resources (whatever that is). June 2010 issue.
>
> Symantec, BitDefender and G Data were the top three (pay) suites.
>
> It was noted that Avira had released a new version (minor revisions) at
> the time of the review, but wouldn't change their rating. (MCAfee was
> rated #8 with a score of 49.)
>
> Ah, I just got my June 11 issue. Avira had about the same rating, and
> McAfee fell considerably to a score of 31.
>
> MSE fell amongst the freebies. Low on net threats.

As I recall, it is registerware. I never had to dial a telephone number
to validate its installation. So I have to wonder if your loose use of
"call them" may have meant you need to give a valid e-mail address to
get the confirmation e-mail which has the product's registration number.
Avast is registerware, too, and the one that I use. Yes, you do have to
provide a valid e-mail but no one is forcing you to use your true e-mail
address. Use a temporary or disposable email account, like at Hotmail,
Yahoo, or Gmail. Use an e-mail alias, like with Sneakemail or aliases
if you have a paid Yahoo Mail account. If your ISP lets you create
e-mail accounts (besides your "owner/admin" one) then create one and use
temporarily to delete later when you no longer want it.

I don't recall the installation being the bear that you describe with
the barrage of promos for their payware version. Of course, I never do
typical or default installs because you don't know what fluff or
foistware you might get stuck with. I always do custom installs.

Note that most reviews of security products are based on their *paid*
versions. You didn't mention if you were looking at freeware or
payware. The freeware version of Avira is missing components that ARE
included in the freeware version of Avast, so coverage comparisons of
the payware versions doesn't necessarily translate well to coverage
comparisons of the freeware versions. The freeware version of Avast,
for example, includes their Web Shield and now a Script Behavior
component (but probably should be disabled or not installed for now)
that is missing in the freeware version of Avira.

Avira typically gets a higher malware coverage rate than Avast but
remember those comparisons are, again, based on the payware versions.
Avira has more false positives than Avast but then Avira's rate is
higher - except Avast has more infection vectors covered than Avira (in
the freeware versions of each).

Avira and Avast are both adware. They both have ads that are presented
during their use. AntiVir, after getting acquired by Avira, became far
more nusiancesome is shoving the adware in your face. In Avast, the
only time you see their ad is when you load their configuration UI. In
Avira, you get a popup ad everytime it does a signature update (which is
every day unless you define more scheduled jobs to update more often and
also then see the popup ad more often). There are workarounds to
getting rid of both Avira's splash screen when it loads (which is an ad)
and when it updates; however, I usually look for equivalent freeware
products that are just as good and either not adware or subdued adware,
and not having to discover and commit workarounds to get rid of
nuisances of adware in your face.

You might also want to consider a different facet of security software:
how well the product disinfects your host. While many of the top-rated
AV products have a good showing as regards to their pest coverage, they
may do poorly in regards to their ability to disinfect a system. Avira
isn't that good as disinfecting a host. Avast isn't much better. MSE
is better but only regarding the lower coverage of pests that it finds.
Typically I rely on daily partition imaging to give me backups to let me
revert my host to a prior state since disinfection by AV programs has
always been less than stellar.

W. eWatson wrote:

> To top this off, I see that it put a CyberDefender in my FF toolbar,
> which I noticed. Pure dribble.

You don't remember what you've installed on your host and now you're
focusing on Avira but you remember installing that one. CyberDefender
has nothing to do with Avira or their products. That is a totally
different company. CyberDefender is subscriptionware (free to try;
$30/year after the trial expires) that probably got installed because
you always do typical or default installs which include fluff or
foistware; i.e., other products are bundled with a leader product.
You'll end up with lots of junk on your host which you don't know about
because you chose not to perform a custom install.

There are products, for example, that bundle in a desktop shortcut to
eBay. The product is obviously not from eBay nor owned by eBay but the
vendor gets a stipend if they bundle eBay with their product (and the
user of that product happens to use that encoded shortcut to buy, sell,
open an account, or otherwise do something at eBay). Other typical
foistware included in dummy installs (i.e., typical or default installs)
are Ask Toolbar, Bing Toolbar, Google Toolbar, and Yahoo Toolbar. If
you elect not to do a custom install where you select what to install
then it was your choice to include everything a vendor chose to bundle
in their installation package.

I just did a test install of Avira (freeware version) in a virtual
machine. CyberDefender was not included as foistware in the bundling of
Avira's installation package. Today it was, well, nothing. I did a
custom install and no foistware was listed.

I have to wonder from where you downloaded Avira. Many of the download
sites will show download links but emphasis them for products they are
advertising. I've heard many times where users get a so-called download
page for a product and click on the wrong link. There's a big green
button saying "Download Now" but its for some advertised product, not
the product you wanted to download which has a smaller link elsewhere on
the web page. You might've download the installer for something else,
or you got the download from a non-reputable download site which bundled
(wrapped) some foistware with the product you thought you were getting.

W. eWatson wrote:

> I thought I'd try the free Avira. I noted CR magazine rated (67) it ...

Oh, CR Magazine. Might that be www.crmagazine.com, a magazine about
cancer research (American Associate for *C*ancer *R*esearch)? Who would
care about a review on anti-virus software dumped there?

Could it be the Corporate Responsibility online magazine at
http://www.thecro.com/? Nope, wouldn't care about AV reviews there,
either.

Next time you want to reference an article (and if it's online) then
give a URL link to the article. Without the evidence of the article, no
one but you would know how their ratings were measured or even if they
disclosed their measurement strategy.

W. eWatson wrote:
> On 5/24/2011 1:47 PM, Nil wrote:
>> On 24 May 2011, "W. eWatson"<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
>> microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:
>>
>>> I thought I'd try the free Avira. I noted CR magazine rated (67)
>>> it first among the free anti-malware, but showed a caveat. The
>>> catch is "...it persistently tries to seel you its untested $27
>>> pay version." Persistent is correct. Good grief. One is
>>> practically hounded during installation. You need to call them to
>>> activate it, and provide your shipping address.
>>
>> Absolutely untrue. You do NOT have to call them to activate. That
>> statement calls into question your entire review.
>>
>> Avira Free's main downside is that it throws up an ad when you update
>> the virus definitions. There are several ways to disable that behavior.
>>
> Untrue or not, it certainly threw up two different windows that stated it.
>
> The CR review. Not in question at all.
>
> To top this off, I see that it put a CyberDefender in my FF toolbar,
> which I noticed. Pure dribble.

Did you get the Avira download from the Avira site, or did you
get it from "Softpedia" or one of those other download warehouse
sites ? It could be, that the version of "Avira" you downloaded,
isn't what you think it is. And thus, your experience isn't the same
as everyone else.

What I do, as part of researching software, is use Wikipedia to get
the company's main web site. Then, I look for the software there.
That gets me here.

http://www.avira.com/en/free-downloa...tivir-personal

I clicked that link, and I'm getting this - 52,676,424 bytes.
MD5SUM = c6a4d3d827b54dad28b659f27f964c1b

http://dlce.antivir.com/package/wks_...ersonal_en.exe

If I enter c6a4d3d827b54dad28b659f27f964c1b into a search engine, it
tells me the file version I downloaded is Avira 10.0.0.648 .

How does that compare to your download ? Was your download
a different size ? A different version ? Are we comparing the
same thing ? Did the download site include a "little extra something" ?

Paul

On 25 May 2011, Paul <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:

> Did you get the Avira download from the Avira site, or did you
> get it from "Softpedia" or one of those other download warehouse
> sites ? It could be, that the version of "Avira" you downloaded,
> isn't what you think it is. And thus, your experience isn't the
> same as everyone else.

I've seen you mention Softpedia a couple of times now in similar
contexts. Is that site known to distribute compromised or altered
versions of software from other vendors?

I would never use Softpedia's service anyway - I always go to the
product's official site - but I've run across the site before.