Kaspersky beginning transition of U.S. users to UltraAV

[randj89]

Bought a license to Norton and I don’t know why I hate Norton nowadays! It feels very loaded!

So bought another license and swapped to Bitdefender Total Security! Very light on my system and doesn’t have much of the extra junk I don’t need and feels very parallel to kaspersky in a few things!

 

[Sammo]

I switched to Bitdefender Total Security and their premium vpn

 

[Chuck57]

Kaspersky's revenge. I'm surprised no one posted this previously.

It looks like UltraAV is the old Aura antivirus. Pango, which fields Ultra was spun off from Ultra a while ago. No clue about Aura antivirus. I searched Youtube and found a few videos, all from the same person, someone I've never heard of and presents like a sleazy used car salesman.

 

[Trident]

It looks like UltraAV is the old Aura antivirus. Pango, which fields Ultra was spun off from Ultra a while ago. No clue about Aura antivirus. I searched Youtube and found a few videos, all from the same person, someone I've never heard of and presents like a sleazy used car salesman.

Very heavily promoted by channels such as Scammers Payback, Trilogy Media, etc. Aura offers a rather mediocre antivirus, paired with loads of features such as password manager, dark web monitoring, parental controls, calls spam/scam blocking, etc. And rather expensive, at $20 per month.

Pricing | Aura - Digital Security

Find the right Aura plan, from basic to protection to comprehensive fraud protection and remediation.

www.aura.com

 

[roger_m]

@roger_m is our honorable expert when it comes to knowing about AVs that almost no one ever heard before Have you ever tried Ultra AV?

This is the first I've heard of it. I just had a look at the website and there's no trial version. You can't buy the antivirus on its own, it comes as part of their highest tier UltraVPN+ subscription, which costs $6.10 AUD a month, or $73.20 AUD for a year. Most likely it's about $50 US for a year. The VPN doesn't have very good ratings, but I am well aware that most VPN reviews sites only give top ratings to VPNs they own (Kape Technologies owns a number of VPN review sites), or make money from as an affiliate. But it also only has 3.5 star rating at Trustpilot.

 

[Nunzio_77]

I switched to Bitdefender Total Security and their premium vpn

How are you finding it especially in terms of performance on the PC?

 

[SeriousHoax]

Kaspersky's revenge. I'm surprised no one posted this previously.

That certainly came to my mind

If it was something more reputable then we could understand this decision perhaps.

Upon rethinking I feel like top brands like Bitdefender, Norton, ESET would have been happy to agree a big enough deal with Kaspersky to forward their customers to their own product but all those vendors are direct rivals of Kaspersky so Kaspersky would never agree to a such deal. Almost all of those brands have dedicated webpages anyway with titles like, Thinking about moving from Kaspersky? Move to our product. Avast, Bitdefender, ESET, Avira almost all of them have such webpages. So, niche brands like this one were their only way to grab some cash before they are finally forced to leave the USA market. But I'm surprised that it's this totally unknown Ultra AV not something like Total AV which is a sketchy brand but at least we have heard about it.

 

[Game Of Thrones]

That certainly came to my mind

Upon rethinking I feel like top brands like ...

whatever they do it means they give more to their rivals, total av uses Aviras tech, and total defense uses Bitdefender tech. they did this so they don't give anything to their rivals, anything they do means they accepted that their rivals can replace them. I don't know why they did this, but yeah it seems like revenge!

 

[nickstar1]

i got 4 years to Norton.

 

[mlnevese]

There are many good choices out there... Even Norton and McAfee are now good choices to replace Kaspersky. As always, I recommend to try before you buy and hunt for the best offer

 

[nightwolf]

Has anyone else found it strange that there is no mention of transferring the accounts over to Ultra VPN from Kaspersky themselves publicly? When the ban was first put into place, they issued a statement publicly, but there hasn't been any public announcement from Kaspersky themselves?

I was using Kaspersky, and after the ban was put into place, I tried switching to Bitdefender (on Windows) and my device was immediately infected. Sysinternals (process explorer) was showing malicious processes, so I decided to run forensics with Volatility, and the results and findings from it blew my mind. The real threat is not an antivirus company that has been operating for 26+ years and has won numerous awards and makes their source code public to review, but the real threat comes from the people trying to censor and control information. It's classic cult tactics of the people who are putting this ban in place to stay in control and in power. Do your research, follow the money, and you'll see what's going on.

It's sick.

 

[Digmor Crusher]

Get real.

 

[nickstar1]

I'm more concerned to why Facebook removed the ability to report fake accounts before the US elections bad actors are going to love this!

 

[Chuck57]

I dropped Kaspersky with a few months left shortly after I learned they were forced out of the USA. I'm running Win Defender right now with Config Defender. I'm undecided on what to do for a permanent AV. The only experience with Norton is from about 2 decades ago, when you'd buy the AV and Peter Norton's picture was on the box. No experience at all with ESET. I'll hang on for now with Defender until my fossilized brain makes a decision for me. None of the others interest me.

 

[RoboMan]

The same company accused of missusing the whole lot of information they gathered from their users?

I don't think this is a good move, and can't understand why Kaspersky would do this. Of course, I'd recommend US users not to install this software, and instead go to good old professionals like BitDefender, Norton, ESET...

 

[Chuck57]

The same company accused of missusing the whole lot of information they gathered from their users?

I don't think this is a good move, and can't understand why Kaspersky would do this. Of course, I'd recommend US users not to install this software, and instead go to good old professionals like BitDefender, Norton, ESET...

I, for one, will not install it. Even the name is one I'd avoid if I found it for sale somewhere.

 

[SpiderWeb]

This is sad. But, I suspect the only thing feasible for all remaining customers without losing tons of money.

 

[Sammo]

How are you finding it especially in terms of performance on the PC?

Very lite and highly effective. To me it's currently the best available

 

[Marko :)]

It's fascinating to see how many people just spend money on AV software when they literally have great and advanced one built into Windows for free. Guys, you do realize that you're paying for software that will just sit in the background and do exactly nothing?

It would make more sense to pay for web browser than for antivirus software. You're using your web browser every time you turn on your PC, antivirus doesn't do a thing for you. Most of you here are well educated about malware and security to know to recognize malicious websites/software. Why are you underestimating your knowledge? If well configured Windows Defender is more than enough for clueless users, than it's certainly good for you too.

If you think you're more protected by expensive commercial "ULTIMATE EXTRA SECURITY + VPN" solution, you aren't. Free product can and often have even better protection if they are configured properly.
I used to hate Windows Defender to the point I would just disable it entirely. Ever since I installed Windows 10, I gave Windows Defender a chance (again). And here we are now in 2024, I'm still using Defender with slightly modified settings. 0 issues whatsoever.

Antivirus software today is snake oil. Buying one is your money going down the drain.

 

[mlnevese]

It's fascinating to see how many people just spend money on AV software when they literally have great and advanced one built into Windows for free. Guys, you do realize that you're paying for software that will just sit in the background and do exactly nothing?

It would make more sense to pay for web browser than for antivirus software. You're using your web browser every time you turn on your PC, antivirus doesn't do a thing for you. Most of you here are well educated about malware and security to know to recognize malicious websites/software. Why are you underestimating your knowledge? If well configured Windows Defender is more than enough for clueless users, than it's certainly good for you too.

If you think you're more protected by expensive commercial "ULTIMATE EXTRA SECURITY + VPN" solution, you aren't. Free product can and often have even better protection if they are configured properly.
I used to hate Windows Defender to the point I would just disable it entirely. Ever since I installed Windows 10, I gave Windows Defender a chance (again). And here we are now in 2024, I'm still using Defender with slightly modified settings. 0 issues whatsoever.

Antivirus software today is snake oil. Buying one is your money going down the drain.

I would agree with you except that sometimes you just want better performance. My computers all are noticeably slower with Defender than with what I'm using now. I wouldn't use something that makes my computer even slower than with Defender.

Also Defender is a major target for malware writers. Not too long ago we had malware that was designed to add itself to Defender's exception list and just run without any interference.

There is no need to buy the ultimate version of any solution. Most of the added services you probably already use a third party anyway. I'm yet to see any security solution that offers Parental Control as good as dedicated software for that, for instance.

So while I agree Defender offers more than adequate protection for the average user, I don't think it's throwing money down the drain to have a paid solution or that it's bad to use any of the other free solutions available. It depends on the situation