Virus Removal and Staying on the Right Side of the Law

carrcomp said:
HitmanPro Incident License 25-pack $ 187.50 (7.50/shot)
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Ridiculous. If someone charges $75 for a virus clean then "Hitman" is getting 10% of the fee ? If you run a dozen applications to clean a system you can end up spending most of the fee your getting for doing the job.

What about programs like GeGeek or D7/D7II which run these applications without any concern for licensing. I know D7 for example will run all the popular cleaning tools but are the authors getting paid for this ? Are we breaking the law running these things ? Are the GeGeek, D7, etc people breaking the law ? Are those companies basically encouraging copyright violation by running them ?

I'm happy to pay for software and stay legal, but some tools you run and THEY FIND NOTHING, but the next tool DOES find the virus. Does that mean I get a refund from the first tool I ran because it didn't work as it should ?

Too much bullsh!t to worry about and no clear answers. You can worry yourself to death about this stuff and get nowhere. Me, I got better things to do.
 
NYJimbo said:
What about programs like GeGeek or D7/D7II which run these applications without any concern for licensing. I know D7 for example will run all the popular cleaning tools but are the authors getting paid for this ? Are we breaking the law running these things ? Are the GeGeek, D7, etc people breaking the law ? Are those companies basically encouraging copyright violation by running them ?
.
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No ... and yes.

Specifically for Hitman Pro. You can download and scan with HMP, but you aren't allowed to activate the 30 day free trial.
 
I also had a reply:

Hello Darran,

Thank you for contacting us.

I apologize for the confusion, I agree that this is not very clear. The reason is that we are working on a new website, which is why it shows 2 different rules.
To answer your question, the EULA file is the correct one. The free license may be used by non-commercial organizations that offer their service for free to home users.
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Perhaps they could have something to come in future. I have replied also to enquire, so we will need to wait and see.
 
Part of the problem in my opinion is that the "computer repair checklist" includes so many boxes, that you can't expect one company to make a one-size-fits-all tool. This is the reason TechSuite includes a combination of 3rd Party, Open-Source, and our own tools - we just can't make them all, it's not realistic. Therefore it's incredibly difficult to stay on the right side of the law, because there are so many EULA's to read, and nobody has time for that.

This thread gave me an idea. Do you think a site like http://choosealicense.com/licenses/ but for computer repair tools would be useful? That way you could just look up the tool you want to know about, and it will tell you what you can do?

We could probably add something like that to http://computerrepairsoftware.com, which is a software coalition we're a part of.

Ian
 
Hey guys - Another update. I'm talking to SurfRight about licensing for computer repair shops. I expressed to them that the reseller model they have does not work for you guys, and that you'd be willing to pay for the software if they could offer a fair pricing model. Hopefully I can be somewhat of an ambassador for them finally having licensing specifically for shops. Will keep you posted on this.

Ian
 
I do like hitman. If they could do a single technician pricing that would work perhaps. Maybe like 100 a year or something for a field tech license?

The thing about Mbam and why I don't even recommend them is their pricing for techbench. To me that's so high for smaller guys like me. I can't justify that much. Plus if I used mbam, it would only one tool in the the kit, not the only tool I ran.

Speaking of that, anyone tried Emsisoft Emergency kit? They've got a tech version starting at 100 a year to clean 250 systems.

https://www.emsisoft.com/en/order/business/#eek
 
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Got a reply about returning systems with that one off licence.

Hello Chris,

When you use the Incident license on a computer and this computer returns (for example) after 10 days, you need to use another Incident license. The license is valid for three days on that one computer, so if you need to clean the computer again after 3 days, you need another Incident license.

Best regards,

Lisa
HitmanPro Support
 
That's silly. No thanks. Even the free one is active for 30 days if memory serves. And you tell me if I buy the product I get penalized to 3 days for trying to be honest? No thanks.


What is annoying with these companies, seems like if you want to be honest with them, they want to have more restrictions on you. I get it, but it's not like their products are the end all to end all.
 
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I also had a reply:

Hello Darran,

To be honest, I don't think there will be big changes in the near future.

Our experience is that repair shops often charge between 80 and 100 dollars to remove malware from a home user computer.
If you purchase a 25-pack Incident licenses, the price per license is around $9. The larger the pack, the cheaper per license.

If you compare our pricing for annual licenses with other companies, they often charge $50 or more per year.
I know a company that charges $75 per endpoint, where we charge $25 for a 1PC license, and $20 per endpoint with 10 seats Enterprise.

I know it seems like a lot of money, but our prices are not so bad when you compare them with others.
I hope this answers your question, and that you see that our prices are not so bad.
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Unfortunately it does seem like a lot of bother. It is an on-the-side scanner, though it is a good one, but it seems auk ward to play around with individual licenses for different computers given that one of it's best features is that it is quick. I suppose this would also rule out automation. I would much prefer a $50 (£32) license per year to be honest. Much simpler. Unless I am adding it up wrong, it seems actually cheaper.


EDIT: Sorry, I see what they mean. $50 for a 1 pc yearly license.
 
Buying a 1 year licence for each computer at $50 isn't cheaper than paying around $9 for the 1 time fix, but honestly it seems to be a waste.

What they need is a technicians licence that you pay annually per tech in your shop.
 
That's what I mean. I had wondered what they meant in saying it is much cheaper, but I had a yearly tech license in mind as opposed to the yearly fee for each that they were thinking of. Oh well. There really is an open and almost untapped market here gentlemen. If anyone was to enter the competition now it seems it would be a great time to do it.
 
Most developers are moving to a SaaS model. The days of purchasing a license to use a software "release" are fading behind us. Game developers discovered that a literal cash-cow in recurring revenue was being overlooked, and began giving the initial release away (setting the hook), and then charging for add on's (in app sales). Even Microsoft is joining the parade with Windows 10. Like it or not, developers are a greedy lot where there will never be enough revenue to satisfy them. (Broad brush I know) HMP is demanding that you purchase a license to run their software on each machine. So, if you used their software previously on 250 machines in a year and paid $50 for the license that was the end of it. Now, use their software on that same 250 machines and it will put $1,525 in their pocket. I'm not suggesting that developers are the enemy, only that the industry is changing, like it or not. That's only 1 developer. Since we use more than 1 tool we have more than 1 developer to contend with. This will likely drive many of us to 3rd-party providers such as RepairTech or others. The times, they are a changing.
 
Question. If hitmans license allows you to scan but not to activate the 30 day license, if memory serves you can save a log file correct?

I got to thinking because the hitman licensing fees are now than I could justify, but suppose we could create a batch file that we copy and paste the infected entries from hitman into that works forcibly delete the files directories or registry entries. Would this be legal and is it possible? Was doing some reading and found this about forcibly deleting files from a command prompt so it seems you could cut and paste things into a batch file. It seems like a good concept just trying to think how to stay legal on things and utilize what we can.

http://www.addictivetips.com/window...-infected-file-or-folder-from-command-prompt/
 
ohio_grad_06 said:
Question. If hitmans license allows you to scan but not to activate the 30 day license, if memory serves you can save a log file correct?

I got to thinking because the hitman licensing fees are now than I could justify, but suppose we could create a batch file that we copy and paste the infected entries from hitman into that works forcibly delete the files directories or registry entries. Would this be legal and is it possible? Was doing some reading and found this about forcibly deleting files from a command prompt so it seems you could cut and paste things into a batch file. It seems like a good concept just trying to think how to stay legal on things and utilize what we can.

http://www.addictivetips.com/window...-infected-file-or-folder-from-command-prompt/
Click to expand...

From what I have gathered you can scan for free without activating a trial. You just cannot use the trial and remove. So theoretically, yes, you could do what you suggested.

Ian
 
This thread is getting a little stale, but did anyone come up with a list of free AV/Malware saners for technicians?
 
I think you will find that if you are using software to make money, then the person creating and updating that software expects to be paid for their efforts.
The question is how much is it worth? If you don't agree with what the developer wants, its time to move on to something else.

But to answer your question, I believe Clam AV is open source.
 
Clam AV is open source. Its probably the slowest AV I have tried, I hope the developers continue to improve it. I am not sure how much trust to put into it as it doesn't usually appear in AV compartives.

If not free maybe there is a list of affordable software for sole operators?
 
chelax said:
Clam AV is open source. Its probably the slowest AV I have tried, I hope the developers continue to improve it. I am not sure how much trust to put into it as it doesn't usually appear in AV compartives.
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ClamAV is free, open source and is literally the worst AV on the planet; that's why it doesn't show up on comparatives. Prayer would probably work better.
 
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