Allow Anti-Virus as Optional

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2670

Allow Anti-Virus as Optional

2670 points posted to Sales Strategies, Software by rgb66rgb 09/20/07 **UNDER REVIEW**

Some purchasers already have subscriptions to anti-virus products that can be ported to new systems. Not having a 'no anti-virus' option on every system order page forces those users to essentially buy two licenses when only one machine will be used.

jorge 09/20/07	I agree! Why do I need anti-virus on my new OS which is designed to not have viruses! I mean which OS would allow viruses to even get on if not propagate? None right? This is 2007 right?
undead999 09/21/07	Dell needs to protect users from themselves, no AV = virus infected PCs and unhappy customer. I could go for an option of 30 day trial AV installed if a customer plans on installing their own norton, AVG, Avast, etc...
jmxz 09/21/07	jorge: This isn't about protecting the naive Dell customer. It's about protecting the rest of the internet from the naive Dell customer. For any reasonable OS, I'd agree with you. But many of these systems are Windows ones, and Windows-without-anti-virus pretty much == spam-email-bot. If you get some spam today (largely from windows clusters like this) - think how much you'd get if Dell shipped Windows naked.
jorge 09/21/07	It would actually be great if you really really think about it.
jmxz 09/21/07	jorge: " Report abuse. It would actually be great if you really really think about it." Hmm, thinking about it more, it would be funnier then heck. Jorge convinced me I was wrong. Where's that "change my vote" feature.
kalstolyn 09/21/07	Small buisiness users have the option of no antivirus. Home users can opt for the 30-day free trial of whichever security suite happens to be paying Dell the most money at the time.
snikch13 09/21/07	I voted yes because this is a good thing to maintain, but I think Dell already has this feature. They just don't provide a discount for the "no antivirus" option. The user should get the price off for the "no antivirus" option.
kalstolyn 09/21/07	So... you should get a discount for not choosing to accept a free offer?
lindahewitt 09/22/07	Dell puts AV software on a brand new computer because either Norton or McAfee is paying them to do this. This isn't about naive customers, it is about Dell putting more money in their pocket. It doesn't matter to Dell that Norton and McAfee software is impossible to uninstall nor does it matter that these are the two worse security vendors. The only way that they are able to maintain their market share is by bribing hardware vendors to put it on brand new computers. Thus these AV vendors are able to maintain their market share and continue the deception about the quality of their products. Dell has a conflict of interest.
kalstolyn 09/22/07	Both Norton and Mcafee have removal tools available on their respective websites for when uninstall fails, and Dell techs are trained to use them when customers are not experienced enough in the use of Google to be able to find them.
kalstolyn 09/22/07	mcafee is worse.
jmxz 09/22/07	@kalstolyn , snikch13 : "So... you should get a discount for not choosing to accept a free offer?" It's even better than free - the anti-virus companies pay Dell and subsidize the machine because they make their money off of the percentage of people who upgrade.
petzymathuram 09/23/07	I have heard it from many customers..... say them...;)
trocupei 09/24/07	I just "fixed (cleaned)" a windows based laptop the other day and what happened was that the trial offer on an A-V on that fairly new computer was seen as a permanent protection by that customer. Some people just don't know the difference ... If you don't put any...it's contaminated within 2 weeks instead of 3 months... There is no solution to that... the user make the difference and too many people have computer and are not geeks enough to handle one. Surprisingly, to these people i would suggest a Ubuntu base system, well configure with support to get their webcam go through the firewall on aMsn for exemple. I've done this to a few of my clients and so far the experience is positive. The systems survived !!!!
kalstolyn 09/24/07	jmxz -- exactly, which is why the free trial changes from norton to mcafee to trend micro from time to time: It depends on who happens to be giving Dell the best offer at the time.
morfie 09/24/07	what really bugs is that i have to get a AV that will expire in 30 days. It is better to not get one and use Avast, or AVG instead.
lordcobol 09/24/07	Whatever AV Dell puts on, I will uninstall and replace with my own BEFORE I connect to the network. I don't like having to uninstall because some Dell bloatware in the past has had uninstall problems. If they give us the option of NO antivirus, only people like me would pick it and it would work out ok. At least once in the past, I picked "no antivirus" and they put one on anyway. Grrr...
jmxz 09/24/07	@lordcobol, and everyone else asking for No AV: Would you choose No AV if you had to pay more? Because remember that these AV companies are paying Dell for the distribution of their software; and make their money on ongoing subscriptions.
lindahewitt 09/25/07	No, I would not pay more. In fact, I would probably look for a vendor who not force inferior products on me, just because the hardware vendor is accepting the bribe from these inferior vendors. Shame on any vendor that accepts bribes and does not operate in the best interest of their customrs and waste their customers time getting rid of bloatware and inferior products. This is frequently not an easy task because these vendors deliberately make it very difficult to uninstall their software. Who wants to get a new computer and the first thing that they have to do is reformat the hard drive and reinstall everything. Yuk, Yuk, Yuk
jervis961 09/25/07	well said lindahewitt
jmxz 09/25/07	lindahewitt: So you don't like newspapers or magazines that contain paid-for advertisements? Or ride public transportation that also has advertisements in their stations and on many trains and buses? And avoid web sites with banner ads? You don't like the post office because it's subsidized by junk-mail? Most of the pre-installed software (certainly anti-virus, and msn and MS Works;; arguably even any Vista less than Ultimate) - is an advertisement. You're not the customer there. You - the captive audience - IS the product that Dell is selling to McAfee, Microsoft, and friends.
jmxz 09/25/07	Oh, and lindahewit: "would probably look for a vendor who not force inferior products on me". Yes, I agree - and I did exactly that. My last Dell - the E1505N - came with $0 paid-for adware.
kalstolyn 09/25/07	My vostro also came with no extra preinstalled software -- except for Windows, but we won't go there.
jervis961 09/25/07	LOL
lazy-ninja 09/26/07	This option is already available on all of the PCs sold through the Small Business section of the dell website. Why not make it available on the home/home office side as well.
lordcobol 09/26/07	On 2 occasions (out of at least 20 Dells I have set up), after I uninstalled bloatware or a different AV package than I wanted, the new machine would not boot properly, or would give warnings on bootup. The un-install routine was buggy and I ended up fixing either by hunting down stray references to the package in the registry, or by using msconfig or similar tools to take orphaned items out of the system startup. On another occasion, when I wanted to install a new package on an old machine, it refused because it thought the machine still had a competing / conflicting package. The new company's tech support pointed me at the registry entry they checked, which the original package's uninstall had failed to clean up. I've had other uninstall issues that were not because of pre-installed bloatware. Years ago, uninstalling a then-popular accounting package made the machine unbootable and forced me to reinstall Windows. So, uninstalling is not a very good solution to bloatware, or choice of AV software. Wiping the HD and re-installing is time-consuming, and the last time I did it the bloatware was not anywhere on any of the included Cds, so if I had actually (gasp) wanted any of it I would have been screwed. So my solution is to buy PCs from brands with less bloatware. Outside of windows basics, the less they pre-install the better. They're welcome to pre-install for everyone else, but give me a choice on the config screens. Dell has lost its position as my preferred supplier largely because of this, and it has cost them 3 sales so far. Note, although I may use products like Firefox & OpenOffice, I don't especially want Dell to force them on everybody either. It would be nice to offer them as options, but only as options.
rgb66rgb 09/28/07	Consistency is also an issue. For example, a XPS tower configured through the Canadian Home/Office site does not provide a 'no antivirus' option. Yet the same system configured through the US Home/Office site does. Similarly, US buyers are given the option to indicate no to "Productivity" software, whereas Canadian customers must take, at a minimum, MS Works 8. When a purchaser does not want additional software with their system Dell should not force it to be taken; any unwanted software is bloatware. And opt-out offerings should be consistent across all product lines in all Dell sites, and regardless of location.
lindahewitt 09/29/07	rgb66rgb, I agree with you. There should be consistency across all product lines world-wide..
kalstolyn 09/29/07	rgb66rgb, in the small business line, you can choose no productivity software in Canada.
petzymathuram 09/29/07	Hi Lindahewitt, you are here after a long time...so how is your "blue screen of death" issue?....;)
rgb66rgb 09/29/07	kalstolyn ... Yes, but, for example, the XPS is not available through small business as it is in the US, another consistency issue dell needs to address.
kalstolyn 09/29/07	A lot of things that are available in the United States of the Centre of the Universe are not available elsewhere.
lindahewitt 09/29/07	My BSOD issue occurred several years ago and I solved it but I had to hire a tech support firm to help me trouble-shoot the problem.
petzymathuram 09/29/07	Hi LindaHewitt, Its quite amazing to hear that you had to hire a tech support firm to troubleshoot the issue. A firm?. Oh my God..that would have costed you more isnt it?...;)
lindahewitt 09/30/07	Even though I had paid $500 for Dell's premium next business day support, their tech support was worthless in this area. They kept saying that I had a bad NIC card except the NIC card passed all of the tests. The problem with BSOD's is that anything from hardware, drivers, OS and software applications can cause the problem. While I am very good at trouble shooting most issues, but after I spent 4 months trying to resolve the issue, I decided that I needed help because I am not a hardware geek. It was worth the money basically because I needed a resolution and Dell was of no help with their Indian script-reading tech support. That is also why I think that there are definite opportunities for Dell to provide their customers with best practices and quick recovery techniques. It is probably why I will never again purchase an extended premium warranty. This is just another profit center for Dell.
petzymathuram 09/30/07	LindaHewitt- I request you not to come to sudden conclusions on Dell on the negative side. Dell is one company that has really tried hard to meet the Customer Experience requirements. Quoting your statement "It is probably why I will never again purchase an extended premium warranty. This is just another profit center for Dell" I wouldnt really agree with you. The warranty fee collected from customers will of course be "directed" to the "tech support centers" to help you with Dell on call and Tech Support. LindaHewitt, this being the sceanrio how can you just blame Dell's extended premium warranty support as just another profit center for Dell? This is juzz a blind blame on Dell. I require your valuable response plzzz...
jervis961 09/30/07	petzy - Looks like lindahewitt said she tried going through Dell support for 4 months and still couldn't resolve her problem but I could be reading it wrong. I feel 4 months is being extreamly patient and can understand her feelings in the matter.
petzymathuram 09/30/07	Hi Jervis- well I cant just somersault to your sayings...to support Linda for the blind blame on Dell, but I do apologize to hear that it took four months to solve her issue. If it really takes that much time and more, well it needs to be paid importance with utmost care. High time to check on as what is happening with the Support centers....I think Dell will be viewing Linda's issue with utmost care.
petzymathuram 09/30/07	Y has the site become silent suddenly?......;) @Jervis what happened to Paul?
jervis961 09/30/07	Weekends are slow, Paul is never around on the weekend but I don't remember seing him this week. Hope he is ok...
kalstolyn 09/30/07	Petzy, Dell on Call is not a warranty based service, it's a fee-based per-use service. And it probably would have found the root of lindahewitt's BSOD way sooner than regular warranty tech support would have. An extended premium warranty really has nothing to do with the kind of tech support you get. It has to do with how soon you get replacement parts when something breaks, whether you have to install them on your own, and how long your warranty lasts. The Complete care then extends to cover accidental damage that a warranty wouldn't otherwise cover. The entire purpose of tech support is to determine which part is broken and dispatch the part for you to replace on your own, dispatch a box so you can send your system in, or dispatch an onsite tech with the part that needs replacing so oyu can get that next business day onsite service.
lindahewitt 09/30/07	But what happens if tech support can not determine what is causing the problem. This is the real crux of the issue. There are some problems that can be caused by any of the hardware components, APIs, OS or software applications. Tech Support had two answers for me. It must be the NIC card (except all of the Dell diagnostics said that that NIC card was OK. When the NIC card repeatedly checked out, then there fall back position was "the OS must have become corrupted (computer was only 4 months old), so you need to reinstall the OS. When I placed my order for my computer and paid $500 for extended premium support, which included "next business day" support, I was thoroughly amazed that Dell had redefined those three words. According to Dell's tech support, they would not send out anyone unless the failed hardware component could be identified. I was also told that the only service that "on-site tech support" would provide would be to uninstall the defective hardware component and to install the new hardware component. They would not do any testing, install drivers or anything else, which was required to make the hardware component functional. I bought 2 computers and paid a total of $1,000 for extended premium support. I could have gotten better results by putting my money in the fireplace and burning it. If Dell had disclosed all of the information as to what premium support would and would not cover, I would never have purchased. The purchase procedures that Dell had in place when I ordered my computer were fraudelent and deceptive. I have a couple of vendors that I deal with that I know will always deal straight up. I thought that Dell was in this category but I no longer trust anything that they say. What they did may be legal and they may have made money off of me but if they don't figure out how to deal fairly with their customers and to treat their customers with respect, then it is doubtful that I will ever purchase another computer. I was very enthusiastic about Idea Storm when it debuted in February but after 7 months of inadequate communications with Dell, I am doubtful that Dell is capable of changing. I expected that Idea Storm would be a 2-way conversation, more like Dwight Silverman's Blog, http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/ but the Dell management team continues to prove that they don't have a clue.
petzymathuram 09/30/07	@Kalstolyn- Thanks for the info.....;) @LindaHewitt- Anyways I would'nt agree with your statement that "This is just another profit center for Dell" Be it anything, be it X or be it Y, money is defnitely involved to accomplish a task, I mean to sort people to do those tasks, web support maintainence, third party involvement etc etc. Hence I conclude "This is not yet another profit center for Dell" but "it is an improvement initiative to help the customers out". Anyways the incidents happening around for Dell is quite sad, and I am totally aware of how these tech support centers function. It is defnitely a serious issue that Dell needs to take up and I'm sure Michael Dell will take it up. Ideastorm does have effective communication...... I conclude that both your statements on Dell are toally false......Excuse me plzzz... According to Michael Dell: " There are a lot of things that go into creating success. I don't like to do just the things I like to do. I like to do things that cause the company to succeed. I don't spend a lot of time doing my favorite activities" This is defnitely another initiative to help the customers, perhaps at this stage it requires a refinement which will be taken up by Mike. LindaHewitt I would have been happy if you would have requested for "few modifications/ refinement/suggestion" rather than just blindly blaming Dell. "Everything, Every person, Every organization requires an about turn in its course of life, for success, " as quoted by my dad I think Dell is now in the phase of rebuilding and re defining its course of Customer Satisfaction in reaching its way to sucess beyond the horizons....;)
lindahewitt 09/30/07	It is really very simple. In good faith, I paid for a service but Dell did NOT deliver that service. Instead they redefined the terms "Next Business Day" support. 99.9% of Americans would assume that "Next Business Day" support means Next Business Day. Unfortunately, Dell is determined to state one thing when you are making a purchase decision and then in the fine print redefine it elsewhere. There have been many people on this site, who have complained about Dell's gamemanship on the website, where there are different prices on different pages. Other people have complained that when they placed an order from work, they were quoted one price, but when they went to complete the purchase from their home computer, there was a different price. It doesn't matter to me what the cause is for all of these problems. Dell needs to stop playing games. Even the Consumerist posts noted all of the gamemanship tricks that Dell deploys. These occurences are not all accidents or happenstance. The bean counters - manager designed it this way. Your statement that Dell's Idea Storm has effective communication is an oxymoron, when that communication is almost always one-way. If it is not a 2-way communication, then how can it possibly be effective communications?
kalstolyn 09/30/07	You obviously did not READ your warranty.
petzymathuram 09/30/07	@Linda Hewitt - Next Business Day Support means Next business day, it could be any working day of the week (Monday through Friday) and not the immediate next day right? . Moroever if you require a service technician visit you, it will take an additional one day more from the next business day that means it will take some time for the technician to come home and fix it up. It could even extend to the next week if your next business day was unfortunately a Friday. If 99.5% of the Americans assume that Next business day means next day then this statement requires a refinement as simply "Dell Support" or "Dell Service Support" A oneway communication is that, you keep on posting something without any interaction from the other end, whereas a two way communication defnitely invloves responses from the other end..be it X or Y...There are discussions over here, there are effective implementations of ideas and it cant be realized by a person who rarely visit the Ideastorm site.....;) Take me for example, I'm somewhere very far from all of you, If Dell could reach me and hear me and my concerns what else do you require to prove for an effective communication? None of you in Ideastorm has not even seen me. Hence I conclude once again it is defnitely an effective source of communication. Now what is your opinion LindaHewitt?.....;) As the clock ticks on I request you to reframe your opinion on Dell., later on dont regret...;)
lindahewitt 10/01/07	kalstolyn, When I am purchasing a computer online, how can I possibly read the warranty? Petzymathuram, Do you work for Dell? Dell had 4 months to provide "Next Business Day Support" and they never did. As a result, I had to hire a technical support company to do quality assurance on my computer to determine what was the cause of the random BSOD error that my new computer was producing. I think that 4 months is more than sufficient time for Dell to either provide "Next Business Day" Support or to provide me with the latest research documentation on BSODs and how to trouble-shoot this issue. I received neither.
jervis961 10/01/07	I'm still with lindahewitt on this one. 4 months is a long time, Dell should have responded diagnosed the problem and taken care of it in short order instead of making excuses. They wasted many hours in lindahewitt's time and their own using this method. In the end they lose not just a customer but get a bad reputation for customer service passed on to anyone Linda tells her story to. Bad news spreads quickly and by ready the site you come to understand that Linda is not in the minority when it comes to service problems. Dell has a habit of putting fine print that changes the total meaning of things advertised on the site. What is worse is that they make you search the site to find the hidden fine print. They need to start being honest with the customer instead of acting like a shifty used car salesman.
lindahewitt 10/01/07	Thank you Jervis.
kalstolyn 10/01/07	yeah that brings up a tasty new point. I'm gonna go searching and maybe post a new idea...
jorge 10/01/07	Isn't this the same discussion we had on that tech support idea? Well I think I wrote the solution to tech support snafu's there, they still work for me don't see how anyone is having issues with any Dell tech support person, follow the script and say no to all (when they say does it work) and someone will show up to fix your issue, there is no need to even turn the computer on during this.
winoffice 10/01/07	What if the user already bought a subscription to Trend-Micro/PC-cillin or Microsoft Windows Live OneCare? Why force him to get a second antivirus program?
jorge 10/01/07	Yet another reason to have it as an option! (not that that is my whole reason) OPTIONS DELL, OPTIONS!
petzymathuram 10/01/07	SUGGESTION FOR DELL: The Online Policies link need to be merged http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/policy/en/policy?c=us&l=en&s=gen&~ Let the above mentioned link be listed or merged with the below said link for effective usage: http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/us/segments/biz/purchase_help?c...~ The TV advertisement displayed over there displays Dell as more as Hell with hellys around.....it is not good....
jorge 10/01/07	Thats an idea move it there.
petzymathuram 10/01/07	@ LindaHewitt I do not work for Dell right now, well you seem to be a great person who can just hire a company as such to juzz find out what could be the possible methods that caused BSOD error. Possibility: Say for eg you are finding the ways strenously as what actually caused this errors with MIcrosoft for eg..with the help of outsourcing or third party, there is every possibility the news leaked to Microsoft "local" and it will generate more and more of bugs, inturn you will be forced to create new employment opportunities to find these bugs out due to heavy work load and you will never find an answer...dont you know that LindaHewitt? Now what is your opinion Linda?
kalstolyn 10/01/07	the "help me choose" link in the configurator on the screen where you choose your warranty type gives you a breakdown of what is included in which http://tinyurl.com/26fsgu
sean 10/01/07	List of Linux viruses for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_computer_viruses
winoffice 10/07/07	Well said, .chris! Not everyone uses Linux, and not everyone needs another anti-virus program if they already have one.
dell_admin1 10/24/07	Changed status to UNDER REVIEW.
jmxz 10/25/07	@.chris: "no anti virus support (that is no good ones) sad" What Linux does have instead, though, are more general purpose security software like tripwire and se-linux that detect and stop a wide range of security breaches including that list of viruses.

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