Really, I’m not one to complain that much, but the new AntiVir Free is filled with “things” that make using it a “real pain in the azz”.
As you can see in this picture below AntiVir free users are continuously bombarded with popups asking you to upgrade. Popups occur randomly in the right corner and you get the big fat ad window when you perform an update. This is a real problem for me and my customers. I know I can turn off the ads via some hacks, however I cannot violate the Avira AntiVir TOS when I’m installing this on a customer’s PC.
Another HUGE problem is the automatic updating in Avira AntiVir Free…it doesn’t work! It doesn’t work on my PC or on dozens of my customers PC’s.
Dear Avira,
Can you please remove some of the popup ads and fix automatic updating otherwise I’m moving on to something else…
{ 44 comments… read them below or add one }
I have also quit installing Avira AV since the newest version doesn’t appear to do e-mail checks. Unless I missed something in the configuration. I have also had several clients complain about the updates not installing.
Avira Premium Security Suite in my Virtual PC could not update also, need to go to download mannually. Everyday, i need to go to this site
http://bit.ly/AviraVDF
When i try to update from Avira Interface, nothing happens
no major problems here but there is always problems when a “major” update is released, 3 MB this time.
popup fix
http://www.elitekiller.com/files/disable_antivir_nag.htm
My updates are working fine, but the ads are getting a bit overwhelming. It’s like having an infected computer with all the ads.
I also been having the same problems since ver. 9, i though it was only me. I guess im not alone and hope they fix it soon.
AVG suits me fine – automatic updates and less intrusive ads.
avira is a very good anti virus dont get me wrong but there pop ups are annoying as im sure you all redy know about it what im useing right now is ok protection i use superantispyware and comodo. the one thing i want comodo to do is try to get there anti virus to work in safe mode i contacted them and they say the reason why it dose not work in safe mode is becouse there defence+ or hips dosent work in safe mode they say it they might figure how to get it to work in safe mode but i was hopeing they would get it to work like at the next version of it i think if comodo wants to keep up there good work they should make this an option in there next version todays malware is very hard to remove and sometimes you have no choice to boot your computer in safe mode and remove im sure comodo will do a great jobe if it could work in safe mode
sure you can use a bootable cd but id like to use safe mode befor i go to that option witch is my last option to get rid of malware and fix computer system files if they are tammperd with by malware
I have been using avira premium security suite for months now and have been having no problems. I think most people that have problems with updates is because they did not fully uninstall their previous antivirus. I have heard about the pop ups in avira personal free but what do you expect your getting it for free and they need a way to advertise after all it is a business and avast is doing this now to with the free home edition.
@ryan – most PC’s infected by malware today are NOT able to boot to safemode (they bluescreen with a 0×0000007b)
I don’t know why this is such a big problem for you. I have AVIRA on all 3 of my systems and they all work without a single popup.
No upgrade popups (why on earth would anyone want to use version 8 !?), no popups about outdated defs either (that can be solved by updating and rebooting if happens).
One system is running 32bit Vista, another one 64bit Vista and third one 32bit WinXP.
@matt i dident know that malware broke safe boot. these jerks that put out malware all ways find more and more i hate them! i guse these days its all about prevention…
@bill they dont have to use pop ups ads to get people to buy avira they can set up a donation fund just like superantispyware dose im not sure if they can do it but i think it would be a good try for them to stop the adds once and for all.
I bearly never get any pop-ups at all, only sometimes when I update database and such. And the auto. update scheduler works great for me it comes up a little almost invisible pop-up really good imo. It feels fantastic to have a good free antivirus and a great router with two way firewall built-in (tested at “Shields up” Stealth on everything
)
If you just keep it updated then you wont be bothered but i can understand the aggresion against the constant pop-ups for newbies in the category hehe
It is easy to block the avira popups with online armor and comodo. I credit those finding to Dieselman.
Updating it the main reason I switched to Eset Nod32. It hardly ever works correctly and in most cases it just does nothing forces me to log off in order to end the frozen update process. For me though, the upgrading nag wasn’t a problem because I blocked the upgrade process with Process Blocker.
I guess I’m lucky, My Avira updates fine. Stopping those pop-ups is not legal.
0×0000007B – is that a boot sector virus or just some drivers that would not load?
I guess you’re only option other than Avira, is probably Avast or Comodo. The new Avast 5 sounds like it’s going to be pretty good, so I’m just keeping my Avira until its released and then wait for your review on it.
Oh, and this may not be important but i never had much issues with updates, i had a hugh log filled with all my updates and i usually only got one issue a week and mine updates every four hours so one miss wasn’t really a big deal. But what was a big deal, was that i had to reinstall my Avira yesterday for an unknown reason, because the guard got disabled and would not rein able. I tried just repairing the files with the installer with no luck and i had to just reinstall completely, i thought that malware could have been the cause, but all scans came out clean.
@alex if your useing avg free i hope you know avg free donest detect or scann for rootkits so your goin to need that rootkits are bad bad to the bone your goin to need a hips product/ fire wall or http://www.superantispyware.com that will remove any rootkits on your computer or you could use gmer rootkit detector.
@ryan: A rootkit (especially a kernel-level one) is hard to detect & remove from within the infected OS. It is by definition invisible to the OS and to any application that runs inside that OS (including AV). So various applications may detect and remove some rootkits but not all rootkits. A Live CD is the most secure solution as it loads a clean OS.
THis happend to me too, so in the ’scheduler’ I told it to check for updates hourly
the avira server answered in 3 sec and i use the free version/servers
LOL. You people are funny. You complain without reading. Avira Free has no email scanner. I have Avira Free 9 running on 10 machines with no troubles what so ever. The pop is very easily blocked with a firewall or simply Google it. See my post in the forums for instructions. I have Avira set to update every 4 hours.
Hello People,
I’ve just sent an e-mail to info@avira.com informing them about Avira 9 free edition issues (I have also included a link for this homepage).
I think if each of us send an email to Avira Team we’ll let them know something is really wrong.
I do really want to keep using Avira. It will be really hard to find another AV free better than this one
@ryan
I do know that AVG doesn’t detect rootkits and maybe that’s a good thing as there are much better solutions out there like Live CDs as bogdan suggested.
To be honest, the Premium version is not expensive at all. Which ofcourse is Avira’s goal… Live with it or go Premium. It’s the only security app I buy, the rest is free (HIPS, Sandbox,…).
Like matt says he doesn’t like to hack a free version he just want to have antivirus that doesn’t inform him about paid versions. Everyone know about paid version but Avira constantly put the popup about their premium. That sucks!!
Yes, you can block the Avira adverts unofficially..but there is a downside to this. I’ve found and other have found that if the Avira Adverts are blocked, Avira will prompt for a reboot after each update.
Also Read what Matt said! he said that he doesn’t want to violate the Terms of service when installing Avira on customers PC.
avira might get smarter
and just remove the popup ad in the corner
people are going to think its a fake antivirus
and their going to be sqrewed over kinda soon
does the hack remove the popup in the cornher?
my promotion is going to expire, so if the hack works, then ime gonna use that
hack??? it´s just some settings in windows.
the popup ad has been there for a long time and the popup in the corner has a hide option
It doesn’t matter what you run, you can still get infected (even using HIPS). I has a rootkit today that was missed by every major antivirus other than Panda… probably something to do with their Cloud thing
Also is ‘Morro’ out yet?
What pop up in the corner. I get no pop up in the corner and blocking “avnotify” is not a hack.
im not the one to tell you guys what to do or any thing but i wouldent go hacking anti virus software to disable the pop up adds they can find that out bye your ip adress and tack you down every time you go to up date its sends them you ip adress and if they dont see you pop up adds they will find out you did something i strongly recomend you do not do so. its just like copying anti virus keys that are in use you can get in serious troubul
remember anti virus software are the people that bust the cybercrime of hacking theyll find ya…………
@ryan What? Chuck Norris works for Avira?
)
I only think that the update issue needs to be fixed. There is a post on Avira forums that gets updated each time their servers are overwhelmed. The solution is to be patient and download those updates later.
The trial version of Nod32 has this issue as well.
yea i think he works for avira hes goin to get ya
)))))))))) 
))))))) get ya 
))) chuck norris will get ya 
))))
Well from what i can tell about this pop up from what i read it is only the first time you update during the day it shows up. If that all it is thats not a big deal you see it once then not again till the first update the next day, i have the security suite so i cant check i get no pop ups. I am a little disappointed with the mailguard spam filter takes way to long to download mail now, but i have seen that with eset and f-secure and g-data so looks like par for spam filters. Also, their forum is lacking you can not even respond to posts (only yours) unless you get trusted member status which i applied for last week and never got yet. Never seen a forum where you couldnt respond to posts, i am waiting to see avast come out with 5.0 and firewall in their suite im hoping they got hips i might go that way not sure yet.
People have been blocking “avnotify” for the past years and no one has ever been punished. Its is not a hack. All you are doing is blocking a pop up ad. So I guess when you block ads in FF or IE the thats also hacking. Blah.
punished for blocking a popup!?, hahaha!
You can always do the process list thing with Comodo ‘terminate & block’. That shuts it up
Jimmy James. That will not work successfully. See my thread in the forums.
@Johnny
i have that problem on a computer too
but its better than the big popup
Avira is back up updating for me now!
my school’s prenspel got that big avira pop up LOL