Avira Scam? "13 Million Threats Detected"

[flexy]

I myself run Kaspersky but my wife has Avira on her laptop since I always thought Avira is a decent, free AV program.

Since a few days, her Avira comes up with a warning, "13 Million threats detected" and the kindly advice to "upgrade to PRO". (Not providing anything about how to actually get rid of the alleged 13M threats...)

Obviously, my wife doesn't even have 13 million files on her laptop so this msg looks extremely shady to me along with the advice to upgrade...which I am totally baffled about since I always thought Avira was halfway reputable.

Anyone an idea what to do?

 

[zebrax2]

Are you sure it isn't something along the lines of "13 million threats detected this month worldwide"?. I don't use Avira but i would imagine they have a little bit of sense not to do what you are saying. If it still bothers you then you can always move her to another free AV like say Avast

 

[skankinstein]

...or MSSE

 

[Spacehead]

Since a few days, her Avira comes up with a warning, "13 Million threats detected" and the kindly advice to "upgrade to PRO".
Anyone an idea what to do?

Where is it showing that warning? In the "message" box that pops up once every day or two from the taskbar? I don't pay attention to those & just close out that box. Usually it's something about upgrading to the paid version.
That message box has been there awhile though, it's nothing new lately.

Try running a manual scan & see if it come up with any detections.

 

[xgsound]

The free A/Vs I've used are Avast, Avira, AVG, and MSE.

Those could also be fake messages from a Malware site. Run your favorite Malware cleaner (adwcleaner and TDSSkiller are generally done quickly) to be sure. For a deeper cleaning use rkiller and Malwarebytes from http://www.bleepingcomputer.com .


Jim

 

[flexy]

No,

it doesn't say anything about threats detected this month/worldwide etc.

It's a red window popping up in the taskbar to the right, saying (trying to remember) "13 Million threats detected, including 'Framer', a malware that collect keystrokes and personal data"...and then "upgrade to pro".

So or so, it looks extremely shady and not something I would expect from a reputable company. When I have time I will look at this closer.

 

[Astfn]

Hi,

The message was not shown from Avira Realtime or On Demand Scanner. It was just an advertising message with the fact that each month, 13 millions threats are detected. More details are shown after confirmation of the green button.

Sorry for the confusion. The advertising message has been changed already.


---
Avira

 

[Spacehead]

It's a red window popping up in the taskbar to the right,

Yeah, that's their message center or whatever they call it. If you right click on the Avira icon in the taskbar & click on "My Messages" that box will pop up.
There's an entry in my firewall for Avira's "In Product Messaging Application". I allow it so it pops up for my every couple of days.
Not sure why it just started happening for you... maybe a setting got changed.

 

[Ketchup]

Avira has always done advertisements during the daily update. That's all this is. If you don't like it, get the paid version, or switch to something else.

Avira has also always had a good detection rate, although the later version started getting somewhat bloated.