Tired of AVG. Which antivirus to sell?

[ImNotDeadYet]

I've been selling AVG since before it was AVG. We've been pretty happy with it, the Business Edition that is, but things are getting wonky lately. We don't really touch the Free Edition because of all the popups PC tuneup junk. Back in the day we sold Norton Antivirus but quit doing that about 2003 when we became unhappy with the product. I'm trying to determine if AVG is still the right product for me and the clients I support.

Today I had a slew of calls, all from Accountants at my various business client offices. Ends up the Trusteer Rapport software they all run is getting nuked by the latest AVG update and resulting in the computers not booting anymore. Trusteer Rapport is an IBM package that tries to prevent financial malware and man in the middle attacks, etc. The banks that some of my clients use want them to use it.

I called AVG support and they are clueless. The agent said he just heard something about it 10 minutes ago. Ends up a machine that came into the shop end of last week had the same issue. So here I am knowing more about the issue than AVG's tech support. Very frustrating.

Anyhow, I read a few things saying Bit Defender and Norton are where it's at these days. I'd like to hear some feedback from other in my field. This is for my small business clients A number of years ago we left AVG for Kaspersky then went back to AVG due to issues with K.

Thank you.

 

[Bootman 650]

@ImNotDeadYet Funny you should say that. As a company, we are also on the look out for an AVG Business Security alternative. Today we also received a ton of calls from various customers with computers that wouldn't boot after the most recent AVG update.

Our customers on 'AVG Cloudcare' were unaffected by this but we've had other naggy frustrating problems with that and like you say AVG support is pretty bad.

I'll also be interested on what other people are using...

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

BitDefender has been great, it's built into our RMM (N-Able) so it's what we mostly use for our clients.
We also use Eset...another top rated AV product.

Kaspersky is the only other one I'd consider...between these 3...Kaz, BD, Eset....you have the top 3.

 

[glennd]

I'm recommending Kaspersky at the moment. It's catching more junk than AVG. A machine I had in yesterday had AVG on it and it was full of malware including a nasty network proxy virus that was intercepting traffic. There are other favourites around these parts also...

 

[nlinecomputers]

BitDefender has been great, it's built into our RMM (N-Able) so it's what we mostly use for our clients.
We also use Eset...another top rated AV product.

Kaspersky is the only other one I'd consider...between these 3...Kaz, BD, Eset....you have the top 3.

What he said. I've got one client still on AVG cloud care and they will move to BitDefender about the same time MaxFocus is supposed to go live with it built in. Other clients are already on BitDefender and I will move them off to Max if that works as well as the managed version of Bit does right now.

 

[TechLady]

Avast or Kaspersky.

 

[Kitten Kong]

Another +1 for Bit Defender, Eset or Kaspersky.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

I've been loading avast free. They have their boot time scan which is a nice tool. They also have a free business version. But I'm sure you could check into reselling their higher packages. Maybe do a good, better, best model?

 

[Kitten Kong]

Beats me, why techs still install any free av solution.

Your losing money hand over fist. Not just with the initial installation, but the following years revenues also.

It can, and does seriously mount up.

@ohio_grad_06 no offence intended.

 

[gadgetfixup]

Another +1 for Bit Defender, Eset or Kaspersky.

Ditto, although we push Kaspersky Internet Security the most, the other two we also recommend.

 

[TechPJC]

Kaspersky, hands down...

 

[cyabro]

Eset for us.

 

[cypress]

Beats me, why techs still install any free av solution.

Your losing money hand over fist. Not just with the initial installation, but the following years revenues also.

It can, and does seriously mount up.

@ohio_grad_06 no offence intended.

I remember your long post about this awhile back and it was replaying in my head the past couple of weeks. lol. I got really aggressive and sold off all the Kapersky keys I had on me the past couple weeks. Made a nice profit on each one and the clients are very happy. Best time to sell an Anti-virus is right after a Tune up or Antivirus because the clients wants proper protection. You seriously will make some nice recurring money each year after that license expires.

I go with Kapersky, Bitdefender, ESET in that order. Bitdefender is really simple in the sense of what you can do with it, but the detection rates are excellent.

 

[oldtech]

May want to reconsider using Kaspersky at all.. Keep in mind that they announced a week ago they were breached for nearly a year before finding it and up to this point cannot guarantee their source code was not messed with. Along with Kapsersky's past KGB relationship thing I would stay away from them for anything touching financial networks etc.

 

[fixitplanet]

I've been selling AVG since before it was AVG. We've been pretty happy with it, the Business Edition that is, but things are getting wonky lately. We don't really touch the Free Edition because of all the popups PC tuneup junk. Back in the day we sold Norton Antivirus but quit doing that about 2003 when we became unhappy with the product. I'm trying to determine if AVG is still the right product for me and the clients I support.

Today I had a slew of calls, all from Accountants at my various business client offices. Ends up the Trusteer Rapport software they all run is getting nuked by the latest AVG update and resulting in the computers not booting anymore. Trusteer Rapport is an IBM package that tries to prevent financial malware and man in the middle attacks, etc. The banks that some of my clients use want them to use it.

I called AVG support and they are clueless. The agent said he just heard something about it 10 minutes ago. Ends up a machine that came into the shop end of last week had the same issue. So here I am knowing more about the issue than AVG's tech support. Very frustrating.

Anyhow, I read a few things saying Bit Defender and Norton are where it's at these days. I'd like to hear some feedback from other in my field. This is for my small business clients A number of years ago we left AVG for Kaspersky then went back to AVG due to issues with K.

Thank you.

Personally I think Trend Micro works well.

 

[NCCS]

I've been selling ESET for years - extremely few issues and never had a reason to look elsewhere. I run it on all my own computers too. It just seems to work without any attention.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

For me right as a one man band, and doing this more as a side business, it's easier to do free as opposed to keeping up with paperwork. However were I relying on this for primary income, I definitely see the point.

 

[Kitten Kong]

For me right as a one man band, and doing this more as a side business, it's easier to do free as opposed to keeping up with paperwork. However were I relying on this for primary income, I definitely see the point.

Only paperwork I have to do for my clients, is to enter their renewal date into pcrt. Then set a reminder to email them 50weeks in the future, to inform them that their av is coming up for renewal.

I do this for all my av sales. Takes literally seconds to do.

Even as a part time business, your still leaving a lot of money on the table.

Quick set of maths to illustrate my point.

You do 100 tune ups / malware / virus cleans. Installing free av solution - Sale - $0.00
Same 100 tune ups etc with a paid for av solution. Cost of av eg $9.99. Sale - $29.99
Therefore you are making at least $2000, just on this year alone!.
Next year, it will be exactly the same. To me its a no brainer. I'm not going to be leaving money on the table for someone else to have.. that's for sure.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Good point. Where do you get all your licenses, do you have a portal or buy them from a web site?

 

[Kitten Kong]

Depends on what my clients want. I try and push for MAV as much as possible. (less work for me, and I can control everything).

Else I opt for BD. I get them from my partner distro for BD in the UK. As I build up my custom, I get special offers etc. Occasionally paying more compared to a site, but well worth it in the long run