At the top of September, Kaspersky forcibly uninstalled and changed itself with a brand new antivirus referred to as UltraAV on the computer systems of round 1,000,000 Americans, a lot of whom had been shocked and aghast that they weren’t requested to offer their consent for the change. The transfer was the top results of the U.S. authorities ban on all gross sales of Kaspersky software program within the nation and — no less than in idea — marked the top of Kaspersky in America.
But not everybody within the U.S. has given up on the Russian-made antivirus. Some Americans have discovered methods to get across the ban and are nonetheless utilizing Kaspersky’s antivirus, TechCrunch has realized.
Several individuals who reside within the U.S. stated in posts on Reddit that they’re holding out as Kaspersky clients. When TechCrunch requested them about their motivations, their causes vary from being skeptical of the explanations behind the ban, or having paid for the product already, to easily preferring the product over its rivals.
“It’s well-known to be the best [antivirus] in the world and has a long track record. There’s 0 actual evidence of it being ‘spyware’ and I can’t just blindly believe something that has no evidence supporting it,” a U.S.-based Reddit person who goes by Blippyz instructed TechCrunch in a direct message.
Another Reddit person, nicknamed YouKnowWho_13, who continues to make use of Kaspersky antivirus from New York, stated they aren’t apprehensive concerning the allegations that Kaspersky has abused its entry to some Americans’ computer systems to siphon off delicate information again to the Russian authorities.
“Hey I’m just a cashier…,” they instructed TechCrunch, implying that they aren’t an attention-grabbing goal for cyberspies. including that the ban on Kaspersky gross sales was “a bit too harsh” and pointless. “[I] used to it for 10 years. Force of habit haha. It’s a nice product.”
The manner these customers are getting across the gross sales ban is twofold. First, they bought their license or key previous to the ban, which means they haven’t violated the gross sales ban and sanctions by sending cash to the Moscow-based cybersecurity firm. Second, they use a VPN or have manually added a non-U.S. server to the record of replace servers, which implies that within the eyes of Kaspersky, they successfully aren’t U.S. customers.
Kaspersky didn’t reply to TechCrunch’s request for remark.
Avi Fleischer, a long-time Kaspersky person who lives in Brooklyn, NY, instructed TechCrunch that he’s additionally nonetheless utilizing the software program on his house pc. Fleischer defined that after the ban got here into full impact, the “Kaspersky Security Network” — a service “designed to receive and process complex global cyberthreat data” — grew to become unavailable, however he was in a position to nonetheless get updates for virus definitions by pointing the replace server to 1 outdoors the United States.
“And now it’s able to update the virus definitions automatically,” Fleischer stated, including that he’s not utilizing a VPN.
YouKnowWho_13 stated they purchased a global license key off of eBay. Like others, they stated they added an replace server that’s outdoors of the United States within the Kaspersky app to proceed receiving safety updates.
Once their license key expires, YouKnowWho_13 stated they’ll swap to antivirus opponents ESET or Bitdefender.
Another Reddit person, Das1996, instructed TechCrunch that they’re utilizing a VPN to get updates and have a license key that expires in round three or 4 months. Once that occurs, they stated, they’ll resolve what to do. But “if the VPN option works well, I’ll continue to use ’em,” stated Das1996.
Domingothegamer, a Reddit person who sought assistance on the web site after they couldn’t replace their Kaspersky software program, stated that they nonetheless have a three-year license, with two years left, for 10 gadgets. For them, leaving Kaspersky “feels like a big waste just because of the ban.”
They stated they don’t even want to make use of a VPN, and that other than including new servers to get the updates,…
