Advice Request Why do people use 60/90/120 days licenses from Promotions?

[Ink]

Who wants to switch between security software every 3 months..?

I just cannot figure out a good solution to help them.

Can you provide any suggestions, so they are not switching every month?

 

[jackuars]

Thanks to being on Linux 90% of the time, I don't belong to this category at all.

However I stand accused of Distro-hopping, just like Antivirus-Hoppers, simply because I want to try out new alternatives, and I believe they feel the same way too.

Oh wait, thinking along the same lines, I hope someone doesn't do that w.r.t girlfriends.......but I can't blame them.

 

[Cortex]

I never use these promotions, the usual 30 day is enough to test - I don't think I would deal well with a 3 month system? I realise some may have limited funds etc & that's a very good reason - For me: Most AV's can be obtained quite inexpensive, some promotions sometimes cease half way through anyway so I usually buy a 2 year sub, with more seats than I need for others, friends & family (I think I keep half the UK going in legal AV codes)

 

[Back3]

I got a 6-month promotion for F-Secure Safe. I tried it with Comodo Firewall for a month then switched to SpyShelter Premium for another month, Then just F-Secure with Simple Windows Hardening. To sum up, I had different setups for nearly 5 months and after that I made up my mind: this antivirus works well with my preferred configurations. I bought a licence.

 

[mlnevese]

I once used a longer trial when I was searching for a new product to buy. It's also a good way to search for problems that may not show up in a single month.

 

[FireHammer]

I would never switch security solution every 1/3/6 months, too stressfull, and all the crap whitch over time lands on your OS, No find(read) some solution you are happy with, and I am sorry to say(unless you use Microsoft Defender) an AV is in 2021 something you pay for, otherwise your data is not secure, if it is anyway, and then when that base is covered, depending what you do online, a good VPN-Service, again you have to throw money at it, that is how it is IMHO.

 

[MacDefender]

I don't think 30 days is quite enough time to trial. Especially since pretty close to the last week you really have to make the decision whether to let the trial lapse or to get a real license, the real amount of time you have to test is different. There's a reason why the world has settled on 14-30 days as the length of return policies. People tend to be in more of a "honeymoon period" the first 30 days and over time their opinion solidifies.

 

[Vitali Ortzi]

It again depends on the user, myself for example, before I download the product, I’ve already read the help files and all whitepapers available. I then don’t need too long to tell what’s good and what isn’t.
Users who are not analytical don’t care what they install, they just buy whatever is on promotion and don’t even care about the trial. Such users normally go for the cheap and most mainstream (McAfee, Norton).

You are a special kind of "user"

 

[MacDefender]

I think some of the less obvious things take longer to figure out too, even as an experienced user. For example, ESET's firewall interacts really badly with Miracast's virtual network adapters and the way they appear out of nowhere and then do P2P communications with ports open on both ends makes it almost impossible to write rules for or whitelist by adapter. I don't know if everyone tries mirroring to a TV.

Kaspersky and F-Secure both cause extremely high CPU usage for WSL1 (seems like WSL1 triggers behavior blocker monitoring).

These days most of the times within a few days I'll have a good idea how the product generally behaves because of the research I do and the experiences I read from other users here. But the other non-obvious things like Kaspersky blocking all IO during a major engine upgrade... or how Norton/Symantec randomly pushes AdvML.* detections that randomly mark all powershell scripts as malware once or twice a year? That's where I'd rather have a long enough trial to make up my mind before spending too much.

These days though, for serious contenders I just keep a 1 year license going. It was nice to still have an ESET license to test 14.x when it came out.

 

[mazskolnieces]

The vast majority of people just want free. Especially those people drawn to online places such as security and software forums. Gaming forums are particularly egregious (Streamed gaming has become a really expensive habit - almost as expensive as drugs). I won't address the economic and philosophical reasons why people want free - because all those arguments are bunk.

Probably 90 % of people here break copyright laws by using illegal online entertainment and things like hacked Roku.

 

[Digmor Crusher]

Probably 90 % of people here break copyright laws by using illegal online entertainment and things like hacked Roku.

Not this cowboy.

 

[mlnevese]

The vast majority of people just want free. Especially those people drawn to online places such as security and software forums. Gaming forums are particularly egregious (Streamed gaming has become a really expensive habit - almost as expensive as drugs). I won't address the economic and philosophical reasons why people want free - because all those arguments are bunk.

Probably 90 % of people here break copyright laws by using illegal online entertainment and things like hacked Roku.

I would say that here those are the minority. The most common offense here is to use VPNs to access geolocked content.

 

[mazskolnieces]

I would say that here those are the minority. The most common offense here is to use VPNs to access geolocked content.

Anyone that views "free" online videos and movies violates intellectual property and copyright laws (at least to European standards\my guess US is the same). I'd bet 90 % of the people here watch "free" online movies. They certainly aren't the minority here nor anywhere else. Not unless you go to DCMA forum.

For every consumer that will pay for software (especially those costing more than $10) there are at least 99 that will not. People don't pay unless they are compelled to do so - such as having to buy Microsoft Office for work or school, for the most part.

When is the last time you've seen a person admit that they paid $250 Euros for lifetime Office 2019 Professional ? Nah. They use license-hacked-activated Office 2016, 2013 or 2010.

Then when you point out that an annual Office subscription over 10 years costs them nearly 650 Euros, they get even more bent out of shape. Better use that Office 2010 on pirated Windows 7.

LOL

 

[Tiamati]

Who wants to switch between security software every 3 months..?

You don't have switch all the time. Sometimes you just have do activate the next 3 months trial, of the same product (aka Bitdefender). It takes 5 minutes of search, and saves a few $$

 

[plat]

For every consumer that will pay for software (especially those costing more than $10) there are at least 99 that will not.

If someone is a penny pincher or a thief of intellectural property, so what? That's on him/her. You take care of you. The marketeers who enable this type of short-term activation, they have it all thought out already. This isn't earth-shattering news that probably many will take advantage of it in lieu of a full sub and then move on. You think they care two figs about your withering scorn of them?

edited to remove unnecessary text.

 

[Digmor Crusher]

Anyone that views "free" online videos and movies violates intellectual property and copyright laws (at least to European standards\my guess US is the same). I'd bet 90 % of the people here watch "free" online movies. They certainly aren't the minority here nor anywhere else. Not unless you go to DCMA forum.

For every consumer that will pay for software (especially those costing more than $10) there are at least 99 that will not. People don't pay unless they are compelled to do so - such as having to buy Microsoft Office for work or school, for the most part.

When is the last time you've seen a person admit that they paid $250 Euros for lifetime Office 2019 Professional ? Nah. They use license-hacked-activated Office 2016, 2013 or 2010.

Then when you point out that an annual Office subscription over 10 years costs them nearly 650 Euros, they get even more bent out of shape. Better use that Office 2010 on pirated Windows 7.

LOL

I don't watch online movies, don't need to. I pay for cable, Netflix and Prime. I also pay for Microsoft 365.

 

[ZeePriest]

Because they can't afford or don't even have a credit card to buy a full suite so they keep jumping from one AV to another. Or maybe because they do it simply for testing.

 

[blackice]

I think people just like to reinstall or reimagined windows.

 

[Mountainking]

Who wants to switch between security software every 3 months..?

I just cannot figure out a good solution to help them.

Can you provide any suggestions, so they are not switching every month?

Man I never do those. It's like running an extended trial. One week is more than enough to know if I will stick to a software or not. Doing this for software you need is just so counter productive. Each 3/6 months, you have to look for another same or similar deal and it's just not worth the time and effort!

 

[mazskolnieces]

If someone is a penny pincher or a thief of intellectural property, so what? That's on him/her. You take care of you. The marketeers who enable this type of short-term activation, they have it all thought out already. This isn't earth-shattering news that probably many will take advantage of it in lieu of a full sub and then move on. You think they care two figs about your withering scorn of them?

edited to remove unnecessary text.

Penny pinching is no excuse. And stealing software hurts nobody except the ones that want the software. Over the past 30 years, literally hundreds of thousands of software have died off because people didn't want to pay. The next thing is that people complain about bugs and security. Well there'd be a lot less of that if people were willing to pay more. But since they're cheap, they get what they pay for. Sorry, but $50 for a license is not nearly enough for the vast majority of software publishers to cover expenses to deliver what people expect. Only a one person shop with virtually no overhead can afford to be OCD about features and bugs.

I don't care if people legitimately use trials. That's why the trials are provided... to evaluate to purchase. But most people on forums like this and elsewhere rarely buy at the end of the trial. All the vendors are aware of this fact and that is why they put comparatively little effort into their consumer products. They make over 90 % of their income in enterprise products.

If anyone hadn't guessed like 20 years ago, software is no longer about providing free. It's about making profit. And having to pay - and pay well - for software isn't some terrible thing.