Customer ask's.."what AV should I run??"

[Calx]

I used to resell Eset... Now I have moved to Bitdefender.

Bigger margin on Bitdefender and it does well in the tests.

 

[bword]

I used to resell Eset... Now I have moved to Bitdefender.

Bigger margin on Bitdefender and it does well in the tests.

Any crazy requirements or money down to get started with Bitdefender?

 

[Diggs]

If I have to recommend a free AV it's been Avast (fast and light on resources) but its been having some Win10 teething problems. Avira is another well rated free AV that seems to play nice with Win10 but I don't have enough experience with it. Kaspersky would be my recommendation for paid AV, but that's just my $.02.......

As pointed out above - your mileage will vary with free AV...

 

[bword]

http://kabuto.io

So this program is more or less constant monitoring. Not really virus software right? Still looks like a great idea. How do you go about charging a customer if something you notice pops up?

Thank you everyone for the help and advice btw.

 

[ZenTree]

Something to bear in mind is that GFI offer to remove any viruses that their managed antivirus did not fix automatically. It's something we rarely had to use when with them but was really handy. Unfortunately with their pricing we are moving away now but I don't know if other managed av products offer something similar. Now there's an upsell. If you get infected we will clear it. For free. But it won't cost you anything as a reseller either..

 

[Kitten Kong]

I have to ask yet again. Why are members supplying and installing ANY free Anti Virus solution?

Think about it. What do you get from it?
Maybe a install fee, but thats it!.
No recurring revenue.
No profit on the actual sale of the av.
Client doesn't (often) get support from the av company. Instead they come to you, you have to support it. You may be able to have a fee for doing so, but chances are the client wouldn't be happy with it. Any why would they?, they didn't pay for the free av, so would expect free support.

Anyone who installs a free av, is losing out on a lot of money.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I have to ask yet again. Why are members supplying and installing ANY free Anti Virus solution?

For the "Friends/family/neighbors" freebie jobs we often do.

We're 99% SMB clients.....with the occasional "residential job" being 1-offs, referrals of our biz clients and friends, oddball ones that we will likely never see again. We make our money on the labor...125 bucks or so. But to setup billing for just 1 AV....and recurring next year to renew....quite honestly, not worth that amount of time to pay our office manager the time to track that license, make sure we renew it, have one of our engineers renew that license, remote into the clients machine to actually set the renewal.

For shops that cater to residential clients..have a store front, makes sense to stock up on retail boxes of AV and sell them, of course. But that's not our focus, so in our situation...it's too time consuming for that tiny sale. Our place is geared towards labor and volume and big ticket items.

Re: the "fee for supporting it"....what percentage of clients actually call the software vendors? They bring it to us..and we charge the same regardless of if it's a free AV or paid for.

 

[Kitten Kong]

I know your SMB stoney, and know your views on partnering up with chosen av vendors etc. I was referring to members who primarily deal with res clients.

Re the fee support aspect of my post. How many times have you heard off clients, I tried to ring X company, and they couldn't / wouldn't help.

It's noted here many times, how 'good' support is for free versions of programs. The vendors imo tend not to want to deal with them, as they are getting nothing in return. The old adage, you get what you pay for springs to mind here. Which again is what I was attempting to refer to.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

it is more of a hassle than it should be, which leads me to ask...what are the most convenient AV's to resell that isnt a managed AV but perhaps lets me renew the licenses without connecting to the client to enter new license.

 

[Siniša]

Panda Free is OK, enough for 99% clients. Just install fee 10€.

 

[ZenTree]

Panda Free is OK, enough for 99% clients. Just install fee 10€.

Panda's detection rates have been horrible for a while now. I've never seen it stop anything. Yes they do a lightweight cloud based free client but 1. It's not gonna stop much and 2. You aren't making much money from it.

 

[Bruce Corson]

ESET, ESET or ESET, we like to give our customers a choice

Here's what I tell my clients about ESET:
1. It works.
2. It doesn't appreciably slow down your computer as some of them do.
3. If you need them, you get customer service on the line in English, with an American accent, and they stick with you until the problem is solved.

And, it makes my clients happy to make their computers work well.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Re the fee support aspect of my post. How many times have you heard off clients, I tried to ring X company, and they couldn't / wouldn't help.

It's noted here many times, how 'good' support is for free versions of programs. The vendors imo tend not to want to deal with them, as they are getting nothing in return. The old adage, you get what you pay for springs to mind here. Which again is what I was attempting to refer to.

Answer to first question...Zero. In nearly 20 years of doing this...I can't think of a single client that called their AV vendor for support. They'd call us or bring the computer to us. I fully agree with products with good support, and I'm a frequenty quoter of "You get what you pay for"..but IMO, in some things...such as a free AV...they have their purposes in certain situations. Some of them perform better than many of the paid products out there. I'll put BitDefender Free up against most of the paid products out there save for Eset, Kaz, and BitD.

I can only think of 2 or 3 times we've called an AV vendor for support..and that was on servers (Exchange Servers)...or related to their centrally managed product. We never for a stand alone computer or a malware issue...if we can't figure that out ourselves...I'd say we're in the wrong business or need to go back to training under someone with experience for another year.

But yeah I agree...for retail/residential shops...push for sales...get an AV reseller program that makes it easy to resell and renew..built that volume. My answer was just a reply to your question.."Why is ANYone installing free AV instead of selling"...since, for some of us, there are situations where we'd rather do that. Kinda like installing Chrome browser or a PDF reader.

 

[cypress]

Wait what?

Its currently in the bottom 3 on AV comparatives...no wait im sorry if you count the default windows defender protection its bottom 4 because its below that. Not really sure how you have had kaspersky customers get reinfected but not mcafee, kaspersky is a mean little cuss that I refuse to use because it bullies unpopular applications that arent signed and absolutely hates my vbscripts with a passion but still I can not deny its probably the best AV at protecting a novice user.

I had an issue with Kapersky this Saturday. I sold the client the license about 6 months ago, the issue wasn't for that. The job was just for a tune up. I completed the tune up with no problems but Kapersky was being a punk and bringing up false positives. Ran additional scans with MBAM, Adwcleaner, MBAR, Tddskiller, HitmanPro, RogueKiller, Emsisoft the works you name it! Finally was able to address the issue but since I installed it and charged a premium on it when I did, I wanted to support but plus the client is my fathers aunt. I just wasn't happy that Kapersky was giving m that issue. I agree Novice users are perfect for this. I have also had great success with Avast so +1 for that.

 

[John Kennedy]

My company primarily offers Sophos AV (we're platinum partner resellers). I find it works great and has lots of options. If they don't want to buy AV and use our RMM tool, that comes with Webroot, which is fine.

I definitely don't like McAfee, Kaspersky, or Symantec. They just don't seem to keep up with current threats or understand business-class AV and performance needs.

 

[cypress]

http://kabuto.io

So this program is more or less constant monitoring. Not really virus software right? Still looks like a great idea. How do you go about charging a customer if something you notice pops up?

Thank you everyone for the help and advice btw.

Kabuto does include monitoring and will be including Managed Anti-virus from Emsisoft. Expect a launch for that sometime in January. I do plan on using the Managed AV and testing it out before rolling it out to some clients. I suggest you sign up for Kabuto and add some systems. You can actually trial the Monitoring for 60 days on devices and get a better idea about it. What it does it alerts you problems or issues before the client knows that what you can be proactive in fixing the issue instead of reactive.

Without monitoring premium feature it still checks the system but if the client gets a pop up with an issue they need to contact you, since you won't know about it. I use it more to create leads. If the client takes the Emsisoft Managed AV I include the basic monitoring with the plan.

 

[cypress]

I have to ask yet again. Why are members supplying and installing ANY free Anti Virus solution?

Think about it. What do you get from it?
Maybe a install fee, but thats it!.
No recurring revenue.
No profit on the actual sale of the av.
Client doesn't (often) get support from the av company. Instead they come to you, you have to support it. You may be able to have a fee for doing so, but chances are the client wouldn't be happy with it. Any why would they?, they didn't pay for the free av, so would expect free support.

Anyone who installs a free av, is losing out on a lot of money.

Yes and YES! Don't leave that money on the table. I stopped the Free Anti-virus because it was hurting me in the long run more than anything. Granted like @YeOldeStonecat said for family and close friends I install a free version any other person gets a paid Anti-virus otherwise I tell them I can't guarantee anything if you get infected running something I didn't install and recommend.

Client is going to call you before they call the Antivirus. Clients sometimes might call Norton if they already have it installed before seeing you, get the run around or get ripped off. Call you and have you remove it and recommend a proper solution because now their computer is slower than before.

 

[Xeareas]

This has been very informative and want to thank everyone for practically pointing out that Eset, Bit defender, and Kaz are the main 3 AV programs to use and resell.

 

[David Stelmach]

Common question I get is what antivirus should I run on my PC? Most of these people have more Malware then anything. I usually just install MS Security Essentials and ADBlock for them, most of the time because they dont want to pay for McAfee or Norton.

Wondering what everyone else does or advises for future protection?

AVG Free. I stopped selling it when they refused to give me free licences because I didn't buy enough!

 

[Digital Micro]

AVG Free. I stopped selling it when they refused to give me free licences because I didn't buy enough!

I just spent hours trying to remove AVG from several workstations. Some would uninstall, some needed the removal tool, some failed using both. I had to reinstall it on two just to uninstall it again.