TotalAV mass buying ad spots on YouTube, is shady

[kshade]

Trusted Net is selling three AV products that are virtually the same, TotalAV, PCProtect and ScanGuard. The first one is being heavily advertised with pre-rolls and banners on YouTube right now and I've just seen a moderately big channel take a sponsorship as well. But they don't appear legit. I do IT security and have never heard of them, but that doesn't mean that they can't just be sublicensing a good AV engine with their own UI and extra features. But no. They appear to be barely above scareware.

 

First red flag is the 30 minuted count-down on the offer in your video description. That is a (kinda ridiculous) scare tactic no legitimate AV vendor should use, since AV is all about trust.

 

They also have an affiliate program promising up to 70€ per user convinced. That is unrealistic and will no doubt lead to fake reviews and underhanded marketing by those affiliates. This appears to be why they have good ratings on some, terrible ratings on other sites.

 

Third red flag are the many, recent complains about them on the US Better Business Bureau website. Malwarebytes, which is reputable, rates it as "potentially unwanted program", same as all the dubious system optimization programs that will tell you that there are 85 fixable issues but will only disclose them after payment. Some people have been saying that it's an outright scam, but I don't think that's quite true. Just almost.

 

It also just flat-out isn't very good.

 

 

[nick name]

You copy and paste this on several forums then?  You wanna fix the formatting for us?  

[kshade]

3 minutes ago, nick name said:

You copy and paste this on several forums then?  You wanna fix the formatting for us?  

Nah, just from my text editor, working on the formatting. Too bad reset formatting doesn't work.

 

EDIT: Fixed

[Roswell]

There's always shady software being pushed on YouTube. Look at all of the creators irresponsibly pushing VPNs, LTT included. Anyone versed in security knows you shouldn't touch remote VPNs with a 10 foot poll (you're literally handing over everything you do online to them and just trusting they won't peek or tinker), yet creators don't care. I doubt they'll care about sketchy AV either.

[LogicalDrm]

If we would go by company which buys A LOT of ad space, NordVPN is top of my black list. There was a time when they had bought pretty much all channels I follow except LTT. So far only Jay has made video about NordVPN sponsorship (about data leak and company addressing it properly).

 

I've heard about TotalAV before. And this style of advertising isn't new either.

[Beerzerker]

I hate it when you're watching a video, it's really getting good and you suddenly get "Adbushed" right in the middle of it with no warning.

 

It's beyond annoying and makes me NOT want to buy what's being stuck in my face within an ad.
 

[nonamesm3]

The salepage shown in the first post together with that ”fake” discount counter is very similar to NordVPN website, NordVPN does similar mass advertising thing as well. NordVPN even has similar popup but without counter.

At least last month they both had similar fake sale. It always resets, nordVPN sale has been going on for years maybe, always about 70% off. 

No, it's not my real IP address

[Arika]

16 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

If we would go by company which buys A LOT of ad space, NordVPN is top of my black list

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