Think twice before installing Avira Antivir 10 Service Pack 2

[c627627]

Avira is free but you have to jump through hoops.

Microsoft has a free thing going but its definitions may not be as good.


I don't think there's anything else free that can compete. There are free after rebate deals that pop up on Norton and Trend Micro both of which are good. Kaspersky and McAfee are the other two pay-fors that are OK and may have free after rebate deals if you catch them.

 

[JackNSally]

Avira is free but you have to jump through hoops.

Microsoft has a free thing going but its definitions may not be as good.


I don't think there's anything else free that can compete. There are free after rebate deals that pop up on Norton and Trend Micro both of which are good. Kaspersky and McAfee are the other two pay-fors that are OK and may have free after rebate deals if you catch them.

What about avast?

 

[c627627]

Avast cannot compete with the ones I mentioned, so I wouldn't go with it.

 

[johan851]

When installing the program, allow the configuration wizard to keep the default extended threat categories. [Do not Select All.]

(UNCHECK: Application (APPL), Games, Jokes, Security privacy risk, and Unusual runtime compression.)

What's the reason behind this? I've seen those options there and wondered about them.

 

[c627627]

It's kind of like disabling UAC on Vista, if you leave it enabled and you are more than average computer literate - it may drive you crazy.

So if you "Select All" in Avira, your computer usage will be interrupted by frequent warnings about "everything and anything."

 

[c627627]

$!*$#@

Brand new popup:



HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Avira\AntiVir Desktop\Reminder

Set MsgID1054 and MsgID1057 values to 3 to get rid of it.


Or save this as a .reg file using Notepad:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Avira\AntiVir Desktop\Reminder]
"MsgID1054"=dword:00000003
"MsgID1057"=dword:00000003

 

[c627627]

So now we know that this downside actually happened:

That workaround should work until v10 end of life.
The only down side I see is if Avira launches yet another new popup prompt in the future.

I just installed version 9 and then version 8 - sure enough even with product updates disabled - the popup shows up on all versions and so when that happens on your friends & family's computers - they will upgrade then call you for help. So it doesn't matter even if you install older version 9 or 8.


So this means there is no solution other then refusing to upgrade three times in a row (after three consecutive boots) each time they come up with a new pop-up. Or go to that place in the registry above and change every new MsgID value to 3.

 

[Acidburn]

And all the more point to me not running anything but MSE on my PC or nothing at all. More likely to screw up my PC running a virus software then actually getting a virus.

Thanks for the tip!

I hope no one payed attention to this stupidity