Uninstalling Avira

What is it with AntiVirus tools these days? We are swamped with "free" programs that pester you repeatedly for PAID upgrades; AVG even tells you it is time to upgrade and takes you right to a page where you can plonk in your credit card number. Never even mentions upgrading the free version.

Forget the fact that none of the free OR paid AV programs actually work (spyware is where it's at, and no one has a tool that prevents that garbage from flying in from the Web). The guys who create these attacks are way more sophisticated, obviously, than the AV programmers are, or I wouldn't have so many customers. Forget the fact that, if you use Windows, it comes with a Defender or Essentials program that works just as well as any of the others (which is to say, again, not), and there is no reason for you to download or pay for anyone else's.

Forget the fact that many of these AV tools will actually screw up your security settings so much that you can no longer get to your favorite sites (like your bank), and won't tell you they've blocked them. No, forget all that.

Just this week I've had two customers with Avira on their systems, and no way to remove the program. On one PC, it doesn't even have an entry in the "Programs and Features" list. It's just not there, and Avira doesn't come with it's own uninstall program. On the other PC, even though I turned off the auto-start for Avira in msconfig, after rebooting it had re-checked itself.

Now in this particular case, the guy using the PC is legally blind and uses the voice feature of Windows to guide him through his keyboard shortcuts. Every program that pops up gets read out loud. Including every instance of Avira, which comes up all the time, and completely interferes with his work.

The only removal methods I've found are arcane and laborious, including Avira's own method, which involves downloading its registry cleaner program. What?? Fuck you, AV programs, and double FUCK YOU to Avira for being so greedy as to promote this kind of abuse on personal computers.