Antivirus Auto-Renewal

Antivirus companies are hungry. They know that their home-use customer numbers are dwindling, as more and more people figure out that you can protect a modern computer for free. So, to maintain their revenue, they resort to sketchy tactics. Much of their poor behavior revolves around “auto-renewal”. If you still pay money for your security software, please understand the nuances and dangers of antivirus auto-renewal:

Covert Ops

Most antivirus companies will gladly sell you their product for a low price, and make the download and installation easy as pie. They want everything to be satisfying and pleasant. But flying in under the radar during this honeymoon period is the auto-renewal program. That’s where the company stores the user’s payment information, so they can charge recurring fee(s) with minimal fuss.

These companies don’t want you to focus on auto-renewal! This part of the business is deliberately covert. Users may only get one chance to see a subtle checkbox as they click Next-Next-Next during the initial installation. Or auto-renewal might be covered by just a footnote at the bottom of an already wordy EULA that no one ever reads. Perhaps they neglect to mention it at all…

I help people everyday with their antivirus software. And every week, I meet someone who is surprised when I show them their auto-renewal obligations. So many people have little idea of what McAfee/Norton/Webroot have planned for their users. It’s the covert ops at the beginning, but also it’s the way they keep it hush-hush on their website, in your account settings.

Tracking Down A Simple Setting

Once you know about your antivirus auto-renewal, you might want to find that setting. In case you want to turn it off. But AV companies anticipate this, and make it … uncomfortable and laborious to find. I’ll try to make it a little easier on you:

• Norton users, check out this article for steps to find and/or defeat your auto-renewal
• McAfee users, use this article to get to your auto-renewal settings
• Bitdefender users, go to this page, and scroll past the propaganda, you’ll learn what to do near the bottom of the page
• Webroot users, check out this site, and please understand that Carbonite bought Webroot, so that’s why the steps show carbonite.com-related URLs

For other antiviruses, the overall process would be to go to their customer-account section of their website, get signed using your email address, and then scrounge around for your payment or subscription details. Somewhere in there you may find where you’ve agreed to auto-renewal, and find a toggle for opting-out.

How Many Auto-Renewals Are There?

Due to the surreptitious nature of these sign-ups, I frequently discover someone who’s unknowingly enrolled in multiple security software programs, with an auto-renewal attached to each one. Last week, I helped a gentleman disentangle from Norton 360 Antivirus. And Norton Utilities. And Norton VPN. And Norton Driver Updater. And Norton Screen Care.

Each one had its own auto-renewal setting. Together, they had been dragging hundreds of dollars from his bank account each year. He had no idea. He thought he was just paying for a simple antivirus on his one PC.

So please dig in to your antivirus account details. Paid antivirus customers should review their product details and payment each year, looking for unexpected changes and unnecessary product.

A Good Soak, Once a Year

Auto-renewal is great for the antivirus company, because it means that you will pay the highest price for your purchase.

Read that again. By submitting to auto-renewal, you will pay top dollar for whatever antivirus product you use. Auto-renewal is essentially a tacit agreement that you will be charged the normal, full price each year. They offer the sales and discounts to the newbies, to the people they are trying to get in the door. If an existing customer is offered a deal, it’s usually to buy additional product (“try our new System Deglazer and Registry Infantilizer for 90% off!).

And if you pay for antivirus, if you are signed up for auto-renewal, you can prove this right now. Go into your account settings and try to turn off your auto-renewal. After fighting past obstacles and discouraging missives, the antivirus company is going to offer you such a sweet deal to stick with them. They’ll likely knock 50% or more off of your next bill. In theory, you could do this… every year.

Final Notes

I apologize if I’ve made anyone feel bad about paying for antivirus. It’s not you that I have strong feelings about, but the deceptive practices of these large corporations. Every few years, one of these security companies has to deal with a class-action lawsuit. The litigation typically revolves around shady billing practices and misleading their customers.

Some people decide to stop paying for their antivirus, but they put off making the change. “I’ve paid for it through til next year, so I’ll handle this it as I get closer to my subscription end-date.” Please understand that you may live to regret that. Again, auto-renewal is going to get you, when you forget to nip things in the bud. If you truly want to get off the bus, start by accepting that the remainder of your antivirus subscription is a sunk cost. Turn off the auto-renewal now and move to the next antivirus, so that you can put the matter definitively behind you.

If you’ve decided to make a change, but regret that your current antivirus has just recently charged you, there may be a silver lining for you. Most antivirus companies offer a 30-day or 60-day refund window on your purchases. And that usually includes any auto-renewal fees. So don’t waste any time, call or chat the antivirus company and ask for your money back. They will strive to talk you out of it, but if you persist and act early enough, you can get a full refund.

Lastly, I continue to promote free antivirus, wherever possible. If you’re on a Windows computer, just uninstall your paid antivirus and the free Windows Defender Antivirus will pop up and take over your protection. If you’re on a Mac, X-Protect is built-in and has your back. But if you want to go further, Apple users can get free antivirus from Bitdefender, Avast or AVG. The antivirus industry hopes you won’t notice that free antivirus protects you just as well as paid software. I hope you do notice, by perusing these impartial antivirus testing websites.