Avira Support Forum

I've had a paid version of Avira for over 5 years. This morning I booted up my computer and got an obnoxious ad parked in the corner of my screen. I had to reboot my computer three times before closing it would work. I've turned off all "special offers", "product information", etc. in my profile.
I paid for this - paid for a 5 year subscription - so I wouldn't get spam on my computer, and now I'm getting spam from Avira. Is this something that's going to happen from now on? If it is, I'll change my antivirus product, and I don't care that I'll be losing 3 years off my subscription. I don't want ads on my computer. Especially not from a software package I paid to get.

Please use in the preferences of AVir the communication settings to disable the hints of aVir.

Click on the red umbrella with the right mous buttom, search for the communication settings, click on it. A browser window appears where you can change the settings. If you wish no any messages please disable all given options. Confirm than these new settings and Avir will not display in the future any hints.

I am in the same boat and pretty angry about this. I paid for Avira for all the same reasons and now I am getting this dumb "Spin it to win it lottery" ad. I changed everything to off in the product message subscription center, but I am still getting it. How do I get this to stop? I am not sure I'm going to renew my subscription after this. Avira must have some very bad business practices to do this to paid customers.

Please recheck your communication settings. Are all settings are "OFF"?

Quoted from "Michael_Mann"

Please recheck your communication settings. Are all settings are "OFF"?

I started receiving the facebook ad yesterday and immediately turned off all communications settings but still received the ad periodically throughout the evening and now this morning. I am very close to uninstalling and purchasing a more reputable product.

Hmm, I'll inform Avira internally about this issue.

Michael I also am having the same problem.

I have also turned OFF all my communication settings.

Further I can find no option in the "Spin to Win" offer to DECLINE this offer. How do I say NO I don't want to enter.

If it helps I am running version 12.0.0.860

My husband and I on xp pro and Vista home premium are both having the same problem. My settings were already turned off (Vista). My husband (xp) disabled then when the first ad popped up. Also running 12.0.0.860

That ads are even an option on a purchased product is tacky and unprofessional. That it is coming from a security firm is nearly unforgivable.

The ill will generated just to drive facebook "likes" (of all things) indicates someone in marketing may need to have a serious conversation regarding career choices.

Why pester your current customers with something so inane?

I agree with all the comments made so far in the forum post.

This is tacky, unwanted and annoying to deal with.

I'm sure this is just a first-time problem for Avira as I've never seen ads before so I hope it gets resolved soon.

Here are my details: Win7ProSP1, Avira product version 12.0.0.915, turned off all the communications options as suggested and still appearing as of this morning. I will post an update if it comes back and no I have not rebooted yet.

Why would an antivirus company want to shove ads at customers who BOUGHT the product?

Yet another reason why I am still using Avira v10 on all my computers.

I switched to Avira Antivirus Premium 4 years ago from another commercial anti-virus after the other vendor started placing pop-up offers on my PC. Now, I'm seeing "spin for prizes" offers from you. I believe this is unethical since I have paid for a product that should not be subjecting me to advertising. I also beleve that neither I nor other users should have to edit their personal preferences to stop such abuse.

EITHER QUIT DOING THIS IMMEDIATELY OR YOU WILL LOSE MY BUSINESS AND WILL WILL RECOMMEND TO OTHERS THAT THEY AVOID YOUR PRODUCTS.

Please do not insult my by responding with an argument that somehow this is not "abuse". Just stop it.

Same problem here too. I am FUMING over
this. First of all, as a paying customer you DO NOT advertise/spam me
without my consent. And forcing ads to me first, THEN asking me to
opt out is NOT ACCEPTABLE. Second, if you are so damn ignorant to do
so anyway, you had better be 100% sure your opting out or “Off”
settings work.


This is inexcusable. I'd like
compensation for having to research this issue this morning, creating
an account here, and the time it took me to post this.


Consider this my end of my
subscription.


Here is the ad I am being served, “Join
us on Facebook to Win a FREE MacBook!”

Shocked to see ads to "win" a Samsung Galaxy. WTF!?!?!? Fix this now please. I can't believe MY PAID license gets ads. Yes I turned off all 3 options in my communication preferences and still get ads.

The part that really irks me is that I fix computers as well and support a decent number of clients. I have recommended Avira Anti-Virus Premium to all of my clients and have sent over 100 people your way that have purchased the product. Guess who they are going to call because some marketing genious decided to push ads to paid customers. Yeah, that is right. ME!!!!

Fix this because you are really pissing off all your paid customers. Fire that marketing exec, he should have researched this before just pumping ads out to everyone. What the hell did you think we were going to do? Click the friggin button and hope to win a Samsung Galaxy?? I mean come on. People buy what they want because they want it NOT by shoving in ad in their face.

Quoted from "Michael_Mann"

Please use in the preferences of AVir the communication settings to disable the hints of aVir.

Click on the red umbrella with the right mous buttom, search for the communication settings, click on it. A browser window appears where you can change the settings. If you wish no any messages please disable all given options. Confirm than these new settings and Avir will not display in the future any hints.

This is NOT an acceptable solution for me. I should not have to go into "My Communication Settings" and turn off anything. While this may work for some people that only have to deal with the computer in front of them, my situation kinda sucks if this is the only way to turn off these ads. (Which didn't work for me on the PC in front of me by the way hence the reason for my post above) I see a major headache of "whack a mole" coming due this these ads.

My clients have multiple PCs residing at locations where the public has free access to the computer to use for surfing the web. While we have taken messures to prevent these users from being able to tamper with the machines, we have also installed Avira AV Premium to ensure viruses can't infest the computer which had been the previous scenario a few months ago. Everything was running great and now with this brilliant decision to push ads, these users are going to get this crap up on their screen and start clicking. Furthermore, there is NO TECHNICAL SUPPORT on site except for a couple of office staff that infested their machines with viruses as well. The staff are computer illiterates who won't be able to grasp the steps needed to turn off the Avira advertisements. I have NO CONNECTIVITY to these sites and will most likey have to make site visits to the various locations to "fix" this problem that shouldn't exist in the first place. My clients aren't going to like getting a bill for me to turn off Avira Ads especially with travel time of an hour between sites AND the fact that turning off the "My Communication Settings" preferences doesn't seem to work. Multiple trips? My hourly rate is not cheap.

All the above pertains to my SIDE JOB which I have to make special arrangements during off hours to perform work at these locations. My full time day job I was planning on dumping our Symantec Enterprise AV products and moving to Avira next year. This advertisement crap is going to strongly make me reconsider using Avira. Of course I was looking at purchasing the corporate version of Avira, but how can I know Avira won't start pushing ads to the enterprise clients?

What does Avira look to gain by pushing these ads? A little extra $$ from kick backs IF 1 idiot out of 1000 buys something? Ever consider that the ads will do just the opposite? When I see an ad, I think, "Oh well, time to switch programs." Every ad you push out to paid customers could possibly cause more of them to leave than what you would gain in commission from the ad. Is that worth it?

Again, fix this. ASAP WITHOUT having to manually turn off ad preferences because THAT WON'T WORK FOR MY SITUATION!!!

Avira got the links of all postings where are complaints about these Ad Roll-Ups exists (also from the other parts of the forum).

Quoted from "DeathByConfig"

My clients have multiple PCs residing at locations where the public has free access to the computer to use for surfing the web. While we have taken messures to prevent these users from being able to tamper with the machines, we have also installed Avira AV Premium to ensure viruses can't infest the computer which had been the previous scenario a few months ago. Everything was running great and now with this brilliant decision to push ads, these users are going to get this crap up on their screen and start clicking. Furthermore, there is NO TECHNICAL SUPPORT on site except for a couple of office staff that infested their machines with viruses as well. The staff are computer illiterates who won't be able to grasp the steps needed to turn off the Avira advertisements. I have NO CONNECTIVITY to these sites and will most likey have to make site visits to the various locations to "fix" this problem that shouldn't exist in the first place. My clients aren't going to like getting a bill for me to turn off Avira Ads especially with travel time of an hour between sites AND the fact that turning off the "My Communication Settings" preferences doesn't seem to work. Multiple trips? My hourly rate is not cheap.

Yours is exactly the situation Avira is targeting. These are the people that Avira wants to make money off of with their pop-up ads.

Ok Avira, since you cannot be bothered to correct this issue after 3 days I am uninstalling your paid for ad-ware and moving on. This is also going on to Wilders Security so others will know to stay away from your product.

I have recently renewed for 3 years / 6 PC's. This abuse violates the trust that was the basis of our agreement. How do I get a refund? I can no longer trust your company and do not want your software installed on my computers.

I've had a grand total of ONE ad and no more. Looks like a stop has been put to it.