a) A list of all the previous Gripelog stories about these two companies
b) A list of links to free alternateives (AVG, Avast, ZoneAlarm, Kerio, etc). [ Reply to This ]
Without the gripe log entries, this wouldn't be the case. :)
Now let's see, who hasn't been featured in a recent gripe, and therefore might have actually improved?
Hrm ... Intuit?! No, can't be. Surely not Intuit.
I guess a lull in gripes against a particular target isn't necessarily meaningful, at least unless the "lull" goes on for a couple years.
:)[ Parent | Reply to This ]
I rebooted this afternoon due to creeping system slowdown caused by the usual culprit (Microsoft stuff leaking window handles and memory, particularly Exploder).
When the system came back up I was greeted with something about my free AVG 7.1 expiring soon. WTF? It normally updates itself without any huge fuss. Why is it saying now that it will need manually updating or die shortly after Christmas?
At the Web site I quickly found out why. The update (AVG 7.5) does have a free edition, but it's really not obvious. The following happened at the Web site after clicking the link from the scary warning dialog.
ANTISPYWARE PRODUCTS This paid software for home users That for enterprise Educational discount license blah blah
FIREWALLS This paid software for home users That for enterprise Educational discount license blah blah
BLAH BLAH This paid software for home users That for enterprise Educational discount license blah blah
YADDA YADDA YADDA This paid software for home users That for enterprise Educational discount license blah blah
<font size=-5 million or so> avg antivirus free edition</font>
Of course, the tiny "free edition" link hidden at the bottom of the page leads to a page with a lot of snazzy box photos and links to paid editions again, with a tiny link to "download free edition". This actually leads not to a .zip or .exe file but a comparison chart with a load of scary red Xs for the free edition. One of these is actually downright misleading -- there's an X for Antispyware, and although the free AVG antivirus lacks antispyware functionality, there's a (separate) free AVG antispyware app. So it's not an outright lie, but it's not really true either -- it just means you need to perform two downloads and installs instead of one to have that feature.
The download itself seems to have worked without a hitch. Once I finally found it, that is.
Point is, they seem to make a big point of trying to:
I don't recall them doing that when I first got AVG, at least a year ago. It may not have been prominent but they were up front about the existence of a free version and didn't make it intentionally difficult to navigate to it.
This experience makes me suspect that they intend to discontinue offering a free edition at all around 8.0 sometime in 2007, and no doubt they will "sunset" the free 7.5 with the same bothersome dialog box as they sunsetted 7.1.
Unless they make it silently morph into a paid version and start quietly charging a credit card number you didn't even give them, then justify this by saying "We changed this license agreement page on our Web site that nothing at all links to months ago to warn you of this change and give you time to uninstall to opt out!" or some such rot. Well, no, that would require them to descend to Intuit's level in less than a year from being better than McAfee, which would be astonishing even in Internet time. But still...
The really weird thing is that I have seen this sort of deliberately-shoddy Web site navigation idiom before.
On porn sites.
Free porn sites, aside from trying to exploit your browser to install spyware and blasting you with popups, always have a bunch of prominent and relevant-looking links at the top that lead to various pay sites and around in circles, and a single tiny link at the bottom of the third page down some obscure hierarchy that actually goes to some actual image galleries.
(As a rule, they also have the navigation deliberately broken if you disable Javashit so they can blast you with popups and try to hijack your browser into installing spyware. Images sometimes hide behind individual captchas -- not to stop automated ripping, though that's what they'll claim, oh no. A script running on the server detects a visitor's loaded a page with a captcha and requests a comment posting form from a blog site that uses captchas, then feeds the captcha right through. The visitor dutifully solves the captcha and submits it, and the script submits the solution along with linkspam to the blog in turn. If the blog posting succeeds, the visitor, unaware of any of this backend functionality, gets to see the nudie pics. And of course some "free" sites lure you deep in with tease pictures and a nesting tree of gallery links, the leaves of which ask for a credit card number for "age verification". Yeah, right. It's funny that although it's damned weak for "age verification" (like nobody's ever borrowed Daddy's credit card, especially when they only have to copy the number down onto some paper without actually taking the physical card at all to do so) it just happens to be perfect for charging someone money. No doubt enough of those they rip off are too embarrassed to question the bogus charges and involve the police, or even request a chargeback. And they probably don't just ding it once, but sell the number on the black market or something...)
So, tell me why a reputable company like AVG with a stellar product (and even free editions) is resorting to tactics copied from such reputable companies as freeanalasiansxxx.com?
(It's also worth noting that if you visit one of these porn sites and get infected with something, then buy a paid version of AVG to get disinfected, both profit. Hmm. Strange bedfellows?)
So, while AVG so far works far better and has a free personal-use version, I am unconvinced that this will last given the events of today. The use of navigational metaphors pioneered by the likes of freesexplosionarchive.com isn't exactly encouraging, and that's just for starters. Breaking from the background auto-updating model to push users to the Web site has to be part of a funding drive of sorts -- a certain percentage will quickly give up looking for a free upgrade and a certain fraction of those will, in turn, settle for a pay version because AVG's worked well in the past. Of course, people who can see more than one move ahead will realize that once they know they can do that to you they will commence tightening the screws, and that this is usually just the first step down the same road AOL and the like have taken, will move on elsewhere or persist until they find the free version they cleverly hid ...
Heck, I'm not even sure that there's a specific page that links to the free version at all. Most of the pages I saw before finding it were either the useless FAQ page, the useless SERP, or one of several very similar product list pages. It turned up eventually at the very bottom of one of those. I wonder if these are static pages at all with the free link at the bottom of one, or if the server uses a script to generate everything and coughs up a product catalog page with a free edition link, reluctantly, only after you've requested n pages from them first and still not bitten at any of the prominently advertised pay products... [ Parent | Reply to This ]
Perhaps they read this gripe and changed it in the past few days? :)[ Parent | Reply to This ]
Click on the "See our full product list" line on the lower right side of the 7.5 warning page.
On the next screen goto the bottom under the Free Security heading and click on the link "AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition".
On the next screen goto the Download section and click on "AVG Free Advisor website"
On the next screen click on "AVG Anti-Virus-Free" link.
Then click on "Download free version" Select the version you want and click on it to download.
Simple as that, right?
Ok, so the original poster of this thread had more of a point then I remembered. While I was able to get what I wanted by following what I considered at the time to be a reasonable path (I must of been real tired) it was much more difficult then it had to be. All along the way you have multiple opportunities to purchase AVG, but you have to go through some hoops to get the free one. AVG could have made this much easier and still given people a chance to purchase the product.[ Parent | Reply to This ]
I think the Hall of Shame could be a really useful tool. I've asked about this before - I'd like to see a single page distilling the reported issues from these "problem" vendors, something that could be taken in at a glance by the average computer user. I'm often asked about, and give advice about, various software products, and rather than just say "oh, they've got a LOT of problems - just avoid them", I could point the interested party to Ed's site, where they could read in just a minute or so something like this:
* McAfee Bad support (123 reports) * Symantec Security Suite corrupts the system (247 reports) * AOL continues to charge CC long after service discontined (4,587,252 reports)
Clicking on each one would bring up a list of each report and date reported. Clicking on each of those would bring up the full text of the report. [ Reply to This ]
It's one thing for InfoWorld to post a less-than-stellar review of a product, but if I were an advertiser or even just a plain-old vendor totally unassociated with InfoWorld, a "Hall of Shame" (especially if my company and/or product is in it) would send my advertising $$$ to other publications. To add, I could tell InfoWorld to fcuk off and not grant a license to review a product if they wanted to do so.
InfoWorld is walking a fine line by having the Gripe Line here. And while I haven't seen any editorial content changes since they brought Ed back on board, Ed --HAD-- carte blanche when it was his own site (limited to any potential legal liability) whereas he doesn't anymore...[ Parent | Reply to This ]
First off, let me just make it clear that this is my weblog and I have a completely free hand to do what I choose. InfoWorld does not edit it, and no one at InfoWorld has ever tried to tell me what to write in it or what not to write.
As for the Hall of Shame, I stopped doing it several years ago. I just grew uncomfortable with how subjective it was.
Ed Foster
This business owner should have hired a competent geek to evaluate his security needs. This guy is running a software firewall, commercial AV software he was suckered into purchasing and then installed over a previous version, on a business-critical computer hooked directly to the net. I don't have a whole ton of sympathy for him, but I also feel sorry because of what he's been lead to believe by marketing.
The fact is that expecting superior technical support for a $39 product is unrealistic. Anything more complex then the most basic known issues is going to involve many hours of troubleshooting and pain, if they can even fix it at all. There are just too many variables. Creating a dependable and profitable computer system is the responsibility of the business owner - it should not be abdicated when the going gets rough to an impersonal far-off company available only through the phone or email.
My suggestion for every small business owner is to track down a professional to give their setup a basic evaluation for security and backups. Can you afford to have your primary/only computer go down for a few days because of some stupid technical problem? Do you relish the idea of contacting your customers because you lost some important part of data? Do you know if your backups are working or if your wireless network is open to the world?
You don't need to hire someone real expensive, I suggest posting on craigslist for a few hours of this kind of work. Look for someone who does this full time for a business and wants to work on the side. If you can barter for services, all the better for the both of you - there's plenty of highly skilled IT people needing auto repair, financial services, or floral arrangements.
A competent IT person in this respect is one who his technically astute, but who also has some business acumen - meaning they know where to spend money and where to save money. In this particular case, there is of course many free AV products, and a $40 router/firewall will mitigate a lot of risk.
Back to the issue at hand - if the OP had discussed this setup with anyone competent, he would likely been given some recommendations that would have avoided his McAfee fiasco. The cost would have been less then his $78, his lost business, and the frustration of spending time on the phone with tech support. That's my 'Hypothesis Contrary to Fact' analysis, anyway.
-Biff[ Reply to This ]
This wasn't "more complex". This was "I installed version Y over version X". Which should Just Work(tm). The problem was obviously shoddy uninstallation of version X followed by shoddy installation of version Y.
Y's installer should detect if an older version exists, or fragments from a dubious uninstall, and replace it. X's uninstaller, if it was explicitly uninstalled, should have removed all traces of the older version when run. One or both failed to happen.
This is one or more software bugs, pure and simple. Not some complex interaction with third-party components or anything like that.
As for the user in question being "deluded by marketing" or whatever, the fact is, that is the only information the user in question had to go on, most likely. And to protect that user, there are truth in advertising laws that are supposed to be enforced.[ Parent | Reply to This ]
A pro could have told the OP that 1) McAfee isn't worth the paper it's written on, 2) you should wipe off all traces of the old version before installing the new version, and 3) back up your data before you do anything. Should the OP have known all that beforehand? No, if he's going to hire a pro to do the work for him. Yes, if he's going to do it himself. Pros would have known because they have done the research as part of their daily lives.
You say that Y should have been able to detect the presence of X, and that truth in advertising laws should protect the consumer, but we don't live in that world, we live in reality. You can't rely on what *should* happen, especially when it's your business computer. You have to check what people who are actually using the product say about it. If the OP had even checked the Gripe Log he would have known not to use the well-known AV products. It's not always easy, and can be time consuming, which is, again, why you hire the pros to do it for you.
The OP got off light this time, and I hope that he took the lesson that BiffTurkle expressed above to heart: get a pro to do the work for you next time, and your downtime and expense will be far, far less. But make sure the "pro" you're getting is really a pro, and not just someone claiming to be one. You know, do the research. :-DRob Miles -- There are 10 kinds of people in the world; those who understand binary and those who don't.[ Parent | Reply to This ]
Issue is, imho, installing software should work with default settings accepted. McAfee Firewall Y didn't detect or remove X (we're assuming that X was working), and a call to tech support to install the software ought to've been free.
Making a customer who's just bought software PAY for support, then mismanaging the paid support issue (the issue "expired" in 48 hours? Without confirmation with the customer?? WTF is that?), losing the issue and losing the customer, is plain bad business.
Someone doesn't have to be "IT astute" to buy OTS software, install it IAW the installation instructions, and then see it work. And software firms don't have to be "business astute" to realize that failing that, they can either support customers, or lose business and go chase themselves around Chapter 13 court.
And WE don't need to be "Foster astute" to realize that someone having a bad consumer experience with a software firm isn't at fault because s/he isn't tech savvy enough. Being a techy doesn't immunize one from consumer hell, as Cem Kaner* can attest to. ;) (Search on Cem Kaner Alienware.")[ Parent | Reply to This ]
Yes, if the OP happens to be feelthy rich and has a surname of Trump or Gates.
What about the rest of us?[ Parent | Reply to This ]
I agree that McAfee shouldn't have such a crappy product, but they do. Average users won't know that, because software producers can pretty much lie all they want as long as they stay within the bounds of the law. That's where professional consultants can save you a lot of money, headaches, and time.
Or don't pay a consultant; that's fine too. Just spend a little time searching online to see what users have to say about that particular piece of [retail] software that you're about to buy and/or install. Or is that, too, asking too much? Rob Miles -- There are 10 kinds of people in the world; those who understand binary and those who don't.[ Parent | Reply to This ]
I notice at least one post here mentions "my company" having rates for such consultancy.
I guess this thread has been invaded by shills trying to get rich off others' misfortune. Parasites.[ Parent | Reply to This ]
You keep ignoring what I'm saying, so I don't expect this to penetrate any further into the concrete, but I'll say it once more: don't hire a consultant if you don't want to. It's relatively easy to do the research on your own, so you don't need a consultant in most cases. If you don't get a consultant, and you don't do the research yourself (one or the other), then you're going to get burned because bad software companies exist. Rob Miles -- There are 10 kinds of people in the world; those who understand binary and those who don't.[ Parent | Reply to This ]
Wrong on both counts.
Ah, another fan of caveat emptor, I see, and enemy of truth in advertising laws. Asshats like you pop up all the time here, and don't ever seem to grasp the concept of "transaction costs". Transaction costs are the hidden extra cost of the transaction, beyond what's actually exchanged away for whatever you receive. Besides $40 for the software, there's the cost (in time or money) of researching it, unless you don't, and then there's the risk of being ripped off. Such a risk is also a cost. A cost that is lower with proper standards of business practise and higher with caveat emptor as the prevailing attitude. A customer trading off the risk and the research cost ends up ripped off more, or doing more research; the average loss in friction in mass market transactions goes up.
And excessive friction to mass market transactions can drag a whole economy down into the toilet!
People who buy $300 worth of goods now buy $200 and do $100 worth of research. Rip off artists get money, and those who enable research to avoid them get money, while everyone else (consumers and honest businesses) lose. (Consumers lose because they spend $300 to get $200 worth of goods and services instead of $300. Honest businesses lose because they sell $200 worth of goods and services wherever they used to sell $300. Consumers lose money, and businesses lose volume. Whatever margins they lose and whatever economies of scale they lose as a result translate into them also losing money.)
So, you are basically coming out in support of ripoff artists, and parasites like yourself who make their money selling ripoff insurance of some kind or another that would be unnecessary without the ripoff artists.
The shoddy business practises you defend may bring in business for you, but in the long run, everybody loses. (There's a formal definition of that -- "Pareto suboptimal" -- in fact; raising transaction costs is generally Pareto suboptimal and the occurrence of actually being ripped off invariably is.) [ Parent | Reply to This ]
Oh, yea, that's some advertisement for my business, considering the only information about me is my name and my signature line. I only mentioned what my business charges as a point of comparison in my area.
I don't know what your angle on this is, bub, (though I suspect you're just the paranoid boob I responded to earlier), but if you think I'm a parasite for offering a service that quite a few people need, I don't much need to waste anymore time on you.
I could (relatively) easily replace my hot water tank in my house, and if I decide to do it I would have to find out which tank to buy, and know how to do all the connections safely. In the fantasy world you live in, the fact that changing a water heater is never that simple means that the plumbers who charge you to do it for you are parasites living off the misery of others.
Oh, brother! Rob Miles -- There are 10 kinds of people in the world; those who understand binary and those who don't.[ Parent | Reply to This ]
Of course you posted it knowing full well what people can find with that, a mouse, and google.com.
"I don't know what your angle on this is, bub, (though I suspect you're just the paranoid boob I responded to earlier), but if you think I'm a parasite for offering a service that quite a few people need, I don't much need to waste anymore time on you."
If the "service" in question is only needed because some other organization is allowed to engage in deceptive business practises and deny a decent support/return policy to its customers, then you're damned right I do. You profit (albeit indirectly) from the misbehavior of McAfee and the like -- which, for that matter, profit from the misbehavior of Microsoft. Doesn't that give you even a little trouble sleeping at night from time to time?
As for your dubious analogy with the water heater, this is getting out of hand -- the posting of a Dubious Analogy of the Day(tm) that is. First of all, the consequences of a failure there can be much larger (actual property damage for starters). Secondly, it's not a common consumer product. You can find rows of McAfee boxes in a retail store in the mall, but not rows of water heaters. It's more like a hair curler -- you should be able to buy any old one, take it home, plug it in, and not have it trip every breaker in the house whilst catching fire. And if it does, you'd better be able to return it free of charge for refund or exchange, sue for damages, and get free support! No way would the hair curler manufacturer get away with the behavior exhibited by nearly every major software vendor. Even though both are shrinkwrapped, boxed consumer tools sold at comparable prices and found in every shopping mall in the world.[ Parent | Reply to This ]
Really. Why? What makes "technology suppliers" so special that they should be held to a weaker standard of conduct than everybody else, and be able to get away with scams that nobody else would dare try in a million years? Let me guess -- you happen to be one of them? :P
Keep in mind that this gripe is at least as much about McAfee's greedy pay-for-pseudo-support policy as about the actual problem with the software -- and the latter is a problem the industry knows by now how to avoid, at that. We're not talking bleeding edge here. Making an installer work even if you have actually had an earlier version of the same product in the past is not exactly rocket science! [ Parent | Reply to This ]
Regarding technology companies making mistakes, you neglected to remark on their curious tendency to make so damn many mistakes, oodles more than anyone else does. Where you see honest error, I see purposeful corner-cutting and a culture of negligence where a regime of lax product liability and consumer protection enforcement has encouraged it for years -- lax enforcement bought and paid for by the selfsame companies. Remember Ed's age-old fight against UCITA? That kind of "bought and paid for".
Regarding imaging your machine before every upgrade: LOL. If your suggestion were made mandatory, you'd have just priced PC ownership out of reach of a sizable chunk of the population that currently can afford one. A complete image of a typical modern PC is around 100GB of data. That's about 140 CD-Rs, costing around $50-$60, and requiring several whole days to burn. At minimum it would have to be done again every month (since I've never gone longer than that without M$ releasing a patch for some security hole or another). You are therefore asking every single PC owner to spend a minimum of $50/month on blank CDs, "or else". That will, for a majority, mean having to turn off either their phone, their TV, or their Internet to free up the money you want. Oh, except that it wouldn't actually go to you ... would it? Tell me sir, do you happen to work in the blank CD industry by any chance? :)
(Other backup solutions are equally expensive if used as frequently as you suggest. Tapes wear out and I haven't seen home computer tape backup hardware in any consumer electronics store anyway. Copying everything to a hard drive used solely for the purpose costs whatever the hard drive does, amortized over its expected lifespan. For a 100+GB drive, that's easily a hundred dollars, plus you need to install and deinstall the drive at least monthly. (Leaving it in just puts the backup in the same danger as the "live" copy of your data!) That will probably shorten the expected life of everything, since Accidents Happen(tm) and the more often you do something risky (such as open the case) the sooner on average lightning will strike. I could go on, but I trust you and our audience (such that it is) sees the point by now.[ Parent | Reply to This ]
Then all you need is to make sure you can restore, which isn't trivial to test if anything goes wrong. Vista even comes with versioning built into VSS.
$100 won't price a PC out of anyone's budget, they'd just have to settle for a less expensive one. Get it, the old more features vs. more stability deate? If you aren't willing to be remotely factual, quit ranting.
You might as well complain that cars need their oil changed and tires filled every few months, which costs money and isn't entirely convenient. PCs are cranky and need it because they're so easy to customize, either lots of handholding by power users, or regular backups and maybe rare technician visits by those who aren't. You want something not so cranky, use macs with their vertical OS/application stack. Customization is what breeds flakiness in systems, aside from hardware defects.[ Parent | Reply to This ]
Commenters in this thread have lost track of the fact that is not a consumer. The OP is a business owner, depending on a functioning PC for his means of income (presumably). It therefore is a business tool, and should be maintained and secure. If the business owner does not wish to lean how his PC works, and invest some time researching software for it, then fine. Hire it out. Otherwise, you may end up with days of downtime and a whole lot of wasted time.
I don't think that expecting professionals to maintain their tools is unreasonable. A chef will either learn to sharpen his own knives, or will pay someone else to do it. A tow truck operator will either change his own oil or similarly hire it out. It's the cost of doing business, and every business has them.
This is to be contrasted with someone who uses their PC for recreation, the consumer. If Grandma's PC blows up and takes 5 years worth of photos with it, I would not blame her so much. I'd feel sorry for her, and try to recover her data, but she does not have the same expectations as a business owner.
I'd like you to clarify what you're trying to say in the third-to-last paragraph, and how you come to the conclusion you did in the next. You may also want to consider that anyone reading Ed Foster's column is here because they similarly dislike deceptive business practices in the computer industry and might not be "another fan of caveat emptor."
BTW, none of this has anything to do with reductio ad absurdum, but I also think Latin sounds cool.
Biff[ Parent | Reply to This ]
It is one thing to expect a giant corporation with cubicle farms full of PCs to hire consultants. (And the idiots mostly go with McAfee or Symantec -- I wonder why? Because it ensures a steady stream of further consultancy fees for fixing the problems these subsequently cause, perhaps?)
It is quite another to expect a single person to do so. Attitudes like yours, on a widespread scale, are part of what is killing small business these days.
"You may also want to consider that anyone reading Ed Foster's column is here because they similarly dislike deceptive business practices in the computer industry and might not be "another fan of caveat emptor.""
Actually, lots of people read Ed Foster's column to keep an eye on their enemy and to spot bad press here early enough for their shills to start spin controlling as soon as possible. We've seen a steady stream of shills come and go over the years here. Surprisingly, Microsoft is rather underrepresented, and on a couple of occasions it was book publishers rather than software companies or AOL management turning up in droves in the role of shoddy business practice apoligist. Nonetheless, it's clear that at least some of the less regular posters here are playing for the other team.
I naturally tend to suspect anyone that is unsympathetic to the consumer of being so. Especially if they espouse an attitude like yours.
There are two worlds being compared here. In one, customers can be sure of at least minimal acceptable quality of both products and services and support. In the other, caveat emptor is the order of the day and the only way they can avoid mistreatment by badly-behaving vendors (expensive) is by hiring consultants (also expensive).
The world I support is the first one. You and that other guy appear to support the second one ("The customer should've done this and that" rather than "McAfee should've played by rhe rules"). The other guy makes a living charging extortionate hourly rates to fix the problems McAfee causes, so his attitude is unsurprising.
Your motives, on the other hand, remain obscure at this time. [ Parent | Reply to This ]
Many small businesses are smart enough to hire someone who can help them prepare for or avert disaster. There are outsourcing companies that make it fairly cheap and simple, or you can figure it out yourself if you're astute, without hiring teams of contractors monthly to run your backup and update your windows.
It's too bad you can't possibly imagine anyone having an opinion that differs from your own, even longtime pro-consumer posters on the site with no motives beyond getting people to see the computer as more than an appliance, and you feel the need to shill against common sense by shouting any argument down.
So far, you downplay the feasibility of backup, you ignore people repeatedly saying that they feel McAfee stepped over the bounds of "the rules" in this case (what rules, exactly, would those be?), claiming that they feel McAfee should get off scot-free when that's plainly not the case, you suspect everyone who isn't you of being a shill, and you rail against the software world for not conforming to laws that don't exist.
What is your motive, exactly, in this exchange? Higher priced, long delayed software that includes the cost of additional testing against every possible configuration (see Windows, which still ends up with bugs after a year or more of an enormous amount of testing each version) while everyone else buys the cheap junk that comes out without thorough testing and complains about it? Is it for all the businesses who create your software to go out of business, unable to make enough money to pay for the excessive testing and falling behind competitors' features? (Not that I'd mind McAfee and Symantec disappearing.) Or is it just shoving your opinions down everyone else's throat without much meat to back them up, hoping they'll say something you can buldgeon them with?[ Parent | Reply to This ]
Bookmark
this page
Bookmark
this page