About ethic in AV companies

Aktiffiso

Level 8
Thread author
Verified
Aug 24, 2013
395
Hi, i want to ask you something to know your opinion. Look i remember when i start to worring about my security. My firts functional an favorite antivirus was bullguard because have remote control support for free. They install the av for you and include help you to remove threats whitouth ask $$. Then they ask for $$ for those services. I move to GDATa but they comes too more expensive and not give promotions or student discount (the firts gdata student discounts was very crazy 3 years licences for 3 pcs for 10 usd). Then i move to avast but the ugly interface and inconsistence in desing make me to move on. I try to move to norton free product but they remove the "free". Avira downgraded they "free product" and not update in a few hours, in comparision whith pro version. Now i see emsisoft not have renewal discounts. I have a licence what i won from emsi because i find a failure in their licence system and report it to developers and reward me whith five years licence. I buy too many licences and add to my account to extend my licence and have a eigth years licence ( now i have 1500 days licence) ok i am happy but no renewal discount dissapoint me. For me more than 10 usd yearly is too much money to expend in security (and i like to buy). .
In that situation one thing to make me angry is the companies downgrade products, make more expensive renew or remove free products, for me this is not ethical. I buy yearly a emsi licence include if i do not need to contribute to they project, but whitouth renewal discount i do not do anymore.
What if AV company says "now my product cost five times more expensive than a year ago"? Can we trust in this companies.
What if kaspersky remove ksc free or if avast make more expensive ?
Do you think this is ethical?

For me not
 
Feb 8, 2020
46
In that situation one thing to make me angry is the companies downgrade products, make more expensive renew or remove free products, for me this is not ethical.

Costs in the world are quickly escalating. Software is a manufactured good or service. Writing code costs a lot of money in some parts of the world. Even in places like eastern Europe and India the cost of coding is increasing rapidly. Also, the infrastructure and maintenance costs are increasing as well. Therefore, software prices must increase to keep pace with escalating costs.

There is nothing unethical about this. It is just how economic life works.
 

koloveli

Level 4
Well-known
Sep 13, 2012
191
one of the ways that companies have to advertise their products (and it is efficient);
I've never seen any problems with this, but free versions serve two things, the first to collect errors and in the case of antivirus to collect threat samples (free users do not give much importance to the dangers on the web)
 
F

ForgottenSeer 823865

For me more than 10 usd yearly is too much money to expend in security (and i like to buy). .
i dont know where you live but 10$ a year is very cheap, i live in a country where the average salary is 200$ a month, and people can afford to go coffee shop almost daily, 0.5$ a coffee...

In that situation one thing to make me angry is the companies downgrade products, make more expensive renew or remove free products, for me this is not ethical. I buy yearly a emsi licence include if i do not need to contribute to they project, but whitouth renewal discount i do not do anymore.
There is nothing unethical, it is business, security vendors aren't charity. I was employed by Emsisoft, so i know very well how it functions so i could tell you the reasons but it is not me to do it.
i find amusing people want free security software while they are ready to spend 60+$ on a single video game or a Netflix subscription...

What if AV company says "now my product cost five times more expensive than a year ago"? Can we trust in this companies.
What if kaspersky remove ksc free or if avast make more expensive ?
Did you consider:
1- salary increases, now even qualified Asian and Indian employees (used to be very cheap) cost almost the same as a starting western one.
2- the cost of software development, malware research, support, etc...
3- infrastructure costs (you all like cloud stuff, who pay the expensive monthly hosting data servers? Santa Claus?)
4- local taxes increases, governments are broke, they drain money as much as they can, never heard about "taxes for digital services companies"?

i can go on and on...

So do you expect with a free or cheap price a company will stay afloat? Look at Zemana, hundreds of free giveaway, result , they are almost bankrupt...their rep disappeared from MT as if he was abducted by some Aliens LOL

i can guess from your post, you are not business owner.

Do you think this is ethical?
Yes. their product, their rules.
They set a price, up to you to follow or move on to another solution.
Will you complain and beg a restaurant owner to give you a discount if his prices doubles? i bet not, you will find another restaurant.

Anyway, if you don't pay with cash , you will pay in another way... nothing is free in this world.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Feb 8, 2020
46
There are many free things in this world, sometimes the free ones are better than the paid ones. You just have to know where to search.

there is free
and then there are
people who don't want to pay
there is a big difference between the two

most people just don't want to pay
whether they can afford to pay or not

the early days of "freeware" and giving softwares to the wider community are almost over
because now even freeware can be quite expensive to support

people having an expectation that they should get something for free on the internet is unrealistic
 
F

ForgottenSeer 72227

i dont know where you live but 10$ a year is very cheap, i live in a country where the average salary is 200$ a month, and people can afford to go coffee shop almost daily, 0.5$ a coffee...


There is nothing unethical, it is business, security vendors aren't charity. I was employed by Emsisoft, so i know very well how it functions so i could tell you the reasons but it is not me to do it.
i find amusing people want free security software while they are ready to spend 60+$ on a single video game or a Netflix subscription...


Did you consider:
1- salary increases, now even qualified Asian and Indian employees (used to be very cheap) cost almost the same as a starting western one.
2- the cost of software development, malware research, support, etc...
3- infrastructure costs (you all like cloud stuff, who pay the expensive monthly hosting data servers? Santa Claus?)
4- local taxes increases, governments are broke, they drain money as much as they can, never heard about "taxes for digital services companies"?

i can go on and on...

So do you expect with a free or cheap price a company will stay afloat? Look at Zemana, hundreds of free giveaway, result , they are almost bankrupt...their rep disappeared from MT as if he was abducted by some Aliens LOL

i can guess from your post, you are not business owner.


Yes. their product, their rules.
They set a price, up to you to follow or move on to another solution.
Will you complain and beg a restaurant owner to give you a discount if his prices doubles? i bet not, you will find another restaurant.

Anyway, if you don't pay with cash , you will pay in another way... nothing is free in this world.

Very good post!

Like you I fully understand that not everyone around the world is in a position to shell out 40+ USD a year for a program, but there are options/sales out there if you take the time to look. $10.00USD is pretty cheap, it's pretty much free at that point, but like you said one's priorities in life will differ. They complain about paying let's say $30.00 USD a year for a program, but have no issues going out to buy a $60-$70.00 game every couple of months, daily coffees from cafes, beer, going out to restaurants on a weekly basis, etc.... no issues spending the money there, but complain when they have to spend money on software.

I think a large part of the problem started when the internet came to the masses and Napster first came out, the whole idea of "wait, I can get this stuff for free!" started and has continued ever since. I've heard of a lot of people (I am sure it is the same everywhere around the world) where they are in a very good position financially to buy all of these things (music, movies and even software), however they still want the free pirated version. So sadly it's not always people who are not in a great position financially that do this.

Like @Umbra has said, it's there software, they can do what they want. At the end of they day, as good as the software/company may be, they still need to survive. They need to make money to pay they employees so they too can have a living. I don't know what it is, but a lot of people seem to forget this. Would the OP, or anyone else, like to work for free and make no money? I don't think any of you would, so why is it ok then that you expect them to give away their stuff and not make money, if you won't do it? Furthermore, things like wage increases, development/infrastructure costs all have a factor and just like your electricity bill their, costs go up too, so naturally the company has to charge a little more to make up for the increased cost.


There are many free things in this world, sometimes the free ones are better than the paid ones. You just have to know where to search.

I think your missing the point of what @Umbra was trying to say. He never said there aren't "free versions", what he was trying to say was that even though the company didn't charge you for it, you are still paying for it via other ways. Companies like Avast are a great example, they offer a free version, but they get you by harvesting your personal data, having ad's etc... So while you didn't actually pay for it, you are still paying for it another way indirectly. As we both said, these companies still need to make money, people aren't just going to work for free, so they need to find ways to make money, ad's and harvesting your data is one way. Kaspersky has come out with some free versions themselves, but personally I don't think it was out of the kindness of their heart. Not hating on the company, but even with those free versions, you are still contributing their analysis by contiguously providing their networks with data to help improve the protection of their paid offerings.

If you really way free and don't what to pay for anything and are on W10, just use WD and what's built in. It's more then enough and you don't have to pay for it and it will always be updated and continue to work.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Feb 8, 2020
46
Like you I fully understand that not everyone around the world is in a position to shell out 40+ USD a year for a program

a us or euro software developer produces their product for those that can pay
i know there is a lot of bellyaching that software is expensive in different parts of the world but that is how the software industry works
they need to stop saying "software publisher xyz you are being insensitive coz we live in 3rd world country with terrible exchange rate and you charge too much money"
if you create geolocated prices, then the us and euro people complain and stop buying because you are selling the same product at a 70+% discount in certain geographic regions to accommodate those living in relatively poor nations
software publisher cannot win
so software publisher should shut its doors and take its products off the market

it is not software publishers creating all these problems
it is the users
and the users are destroying their favorite software with their bad attitudes and not wanting to pay
for those that are willing to pay, the price increases because of cracks, warez and illegal licenses, and those people subsidize all the thieves
that's how it works
 
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plat

Level 29
Top Poster
Sep 13, 2018
1,793
Well, the point is: someone is used to- and may expect to be- getting a product for free or at reduced cost. Said product is withdrawn or goes up in price at the next cycle and the someone is now unhappy and thinking it's unethical. That's a natural human reaction. Shoot, who wants to pay when they didn't have to before?

Software is the company's intellectual property and subject to a lot of analyses and forecasting in order to determine the maximum monetary returns after so much time on the market at such-and-such a price point. It's a science. All that data harvesting people are concerned about, that's a big time supplier.

If you buy a software at a big discount, and the company bills your credit card again six months later, now that's unethical.
 

DDE_Server

Level 22
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Sep 5, 2017
1,168
i just trust with open source software which is free though it is also require donations and man power contributions which means they are partially free . these donations make them survive such as linux and other popular software.so it is not free but trustful you may find a lot of these project die as donations or man power (developers ) significantly decrease such as MPC so that is a fact nothing is free by any mean
 
F

ForgottenSeer 72227

i just trust with open source software which is free though it is also require donations and man power contributions which means they are partially free . these donations make them survive such as linux and other popular software.so it is not free but trustful you may find a lot of these project die as donations or man power (developers ) significantly decrease such as MPC so that is a fact nothing is free by any mean

Well to be fair I think there's a misconception with open source with the expectation that the software always has to be free. All it really means is that the source code is openly available to look at and and/or reuse. Technically speaking MS could make Windows open source and still charge for it, but from a business standpoint and an intellectual standpoint, they keep it closed sourced. One thing that bugs me about open source is that everyone is copying everyone and there doesn't seem to be any really innovation IMHO. It's way to diluted and because you can use the code, a lot of people just piggy back off the hard work that others have done. They didn't put nearly as much effort into it, but yet they take the code, come up with an new name and voila, a new linux distro. I don't have any data to support this, but my gut tells me this is one of the reasons as to why Linux has never taken off. It's way too diluted with a million distros (exaggerating the number :p), not to mention all the various UI's etc. At least with WIndows, or Mac OS, you know what your getting. With Linux it's like ok, which distro is it, oh wait, which UI is this, oh wait I have to use pacman, or apt-get, oh wait etc...

Like you said a lot of open source projects are "free," but a lot of that has to do with donations, or developers working on the project during their spare time. As you stated however, which is a great example of the overlying discussion here, is that a lot of these projects die off, either due to lack of funds, man power, etc.. At the end of the day, it's still related to funds, as people don't want to work for free. One thing I would be interested in, is how many people actually donate to these projects/developers, vs just using it because it's free? My guess is that the donations don't reflect how many people are actually using the program.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

DDE_Server

Level 22
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Sep 5, 2017
1,168
Well to be fair I think there's a misconception with open source, with the expectation that the software always has to be free. All it really means is that the source code is openly available to look and and/or reuse. Technically speaking MS could make Windows open source and still charge for it, but from a business standpoint and an intellectual standpoint, they keep it closed sourced. One thing that bugs me about open source is that everyone is copying everyone and there doesn't seem to be any really innovation IMHO. It's way to diluted and many times because you can use the code, a lot of people just piggy back off the hard work that others have done. They didn't put nearly as much effort into it, but yet they take the code, come up with an new name and voila, here it is a new linux distro. I don't have any data to support this, but my gut tells me this is one of the reasons as to why Linux has never taken off, it's way too diluted with a million distros (exaggerating the number :p). Not to mention all the various UI's etc. At least with WIndows, or Mac OS, you know what your getting, with Linux it's like ok, which distro is it, oh wait, which UI is this, oh wait I have to use pacman, or apt-get, oh wait etc...

Like you said a lot of open source projects are "free," but a lot of that has to do with donations, or developers working on the project during their spare time. As you stated however, which is a great example of the overlying discussion here, is that a lot of these projects die off, either due to lack of funds, man power, etc.. At the end of the day, it's still related to funds, as people don't want to work for free. One thing I would be interested in, is how many people actually donate to these projects/developers, vs just using it because it's free? My guess is that the donations don't reflect how many people are actually using the program.
if you see it from another view you will see that they arenot work completely free:
  1. developers just don't add only to the opensource community but also gain (not funds only) but sharpen their skills more by seeing new coding ideas contributed by the other and fork for another projects (which make them avoid starting from scratch)
  2. opensource code eligible anyone (according to licence EULA) to redistribute the code which benefits you to embed it in another projects
  3. the founder also benefits if the project success it may produce enterprise (commericial) version with fees lower that intellectual one which make them more competitive (red hat Linux Distro) for example (by the aid of opensource community giving away fredora as reward)
so it is mutual beneficial relations (a big example also for that is new Microsoft chromium Edge) which based on google chrome code base
Time represent a cost. why you re invent the bicycle again if you have all its components free to use :)
 
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ForgottenSeer 823865

One thing I would be interested in, is how many people actually donate to these projects/developers, vs just using it because it's free? My guess is that the donations don't reflect how many people are actually using the program.
Ironically Linux development is quite backed up by Microsoft it is one of the biggest donator among others.


so of course, i laugh at those Linux fanboys hating MS while MS in fact is contributing heavily to the well-being of Linux.
 

DDE_Server

Level 22
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Sep 5, 2017
1,168
Ironically Linux development is quite backed up by Microsoft it is one of the biggest donator among others.


so of course, i laugh at those Linux fanboys hating MS while MS in fact is contributing heavily to the well-being of Linux.
it is confirm my above post it is mutual beneficial relation. Win Win but i found more win to the end user if doesn't have any privacy concern or data harvesting which opensource prevent and will make this project die if there is any suspicion or being closed and continue to be free
 
Feb 8, 2020
46
Well to be fair I think there's a misconception with open source with the expectation that the software always has to be free. All it really means is that the source code is openly available to look at and and/or reuse. Technically speaking MS could make Windows open source and still charge for it, but from a business standpoint and an intellectual standpoint, they keep it closed sourced. One thing that bugs me about open source is that everyone is copying everyone and there doesn't seem to be any really innovation IMHO. It's way to diluted and because you can use the code, a lot of people just piggy back off the hard work that others have done. They didn't put nearly as much effort into it, but yet they take the code, come up with an new name and voila, a new linux distro. I don't have any data to support this, but my gut tells me this is one of the reasons as to why Linux has never taken off. It's way too diluted with a million distros (exaggerating the number :p), not to mention all the various UI's etc. At least with WIndows, or Mac OS, you know what your getting. With Linux it's like ok, which distro is it, oh wait, which UI is this, oh wait I have to use pacman, or apt-get, oh wait etc...

Like you said a lot of open source projects are "free," but a lot of that has to do with donations, or developers working on the project during their spare time. As you stated however, which is a great example of the overlying discussion here, is that a lot of these projects die off, either due to lack of funds, man power, etc.. At the end of the day, it's still related to funds, as people don't want to work for free. One thing I would be interested in, is how many people actually donate to these projects/developers, vs just using it because it's free? My guess is that the donations don't reflect how many people are actually using the program.

Linux never became popular because the Linux community does not support:
1. The most widely-used software used in business (such as Microsoft Office)
2. A desktop system that panders and caters to helpless typical users (the user is actually expected to learn and do themselves\God forbid that they have to learn to use the command line, how dare those Linux communists expect users to actually do some work)
 
Feb 8, 2020
46
so of course, i laugh at those Linux fanboys hating MS while MS in fact is contributing heavily to the well-being of Linux.

they hate for the same reason that anti-Google\Chrome\Chrome OS\Chromebook people hate here
privacy blah, blah, blah

there is an ideology behind FOSS also - no copyright - therefore Microsoft is the devil

Microsoft's Linux Foundation membership is questionable
it remains to be seen exactly what Microsoft is up to
many in FOSS argue, and rightly so, that Microsoft wants to shape Linux for its own ends
Microsoft has prove through its own actions whether it is really supporting Linux or just having another one of its corporate profit agendas

Steve Ballmer once called Linux a cancer
as it turns out the real societal cancers are Windows, Microsoft Office and Microsoft itself
it holds the world hostage
 

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