Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Intego's Virus Barrier is like malware

Jethryn Freyman

Jethryn Freyman

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Aug 9, 2007
2,329
3
Australia
It's sneaky, subversive, and treats users like pirates.

Let me explain.

I installed it (30 day trial) a year ago to check it out. I uninstalled it later that day. I noticed that it wasn't totally uninstalled, so I searched through my system with spotlight until I found every file associated with "Intego" or "Netupdate" or "Virusbarrier", and so on.

I thought it was gone.

Now, I installed it again on the same Mac couple of weeks ago to take another look at it. It tells me that my evaluation period has expired.

Obviously, the installer leaves behind some deliberately misnamed file on the system somewhere to record the date it has been installed to avoid people trying to continue using the 30 day trial past the 30 days.

Quitting the app is nearly as bad if you don't want to reboot. Kill one process, and another sprouts back up.

I honestly had more trouble removing Virus Barrier X5 than I've had removing viruses from Windows systems..
 
Jethryn Freyman said:
It's sneaky, subversive, and treats users like pirates.

Let me explain.

I installed it (30 day trial) a year ago to check it out. I uninstalled it later that day. I noticed that it wasn't totally uninstalled, so I searched through my system with spotlight until I found every file associated with "Intego" or "Netupdate" or "Virusbarrier", and so on.

I thought it was gone.

Now, I installed it again on the same Mac couple of weeks ago to take another look at it. It tells me that my evaluation period has expired.

Obviously, the installer leaves behind some deliberately misnamed file on the system somewhere to record the date it has been installed to avoid people trying to continue using the 30 day trial past the 30 days.

Quitting the app is nearly as bad if you don't want to reboot. Kill one process, and another sprouts back up.

I honestly had more trouble removing Virus Barrier X5 than I've had removing viruses from Windows systems..
Click to expand...

Apps (on Mac and Windows, Amiga, whatever) have been doing this since the beginning of time. It's nothing unusual.
 
For the naming: Not every file has the program name in it. While the main exectuable may have been called Intego Virus Barrier, other files may have been named userdata, schedules, etc

As for the program sprouting... that is completely normal. Todays viruses are programed to shut down known virus scanners.

For example if you have Windows (I'm a Windows convert, I don't know many examples with Mac, sorry) running AVG and you get a virus, it might attempt to shut the virus scanner down on purpose so that the virus does not get detected and/or deleted.

This is good design.

I have not used this Virus Barrier but I would suspect you simply didn't remove it right. Sometimes dragging the icon to the trash can is not how you remove applications. It may be an option within the anti virus interface itself, within System Preferenes or a script.

Next time you want to remove something I suggest two things:

First download a program called AppCleaner. It's a simple to use program (and free) where all you have to do is drag the application icon into a box and it will search all files related to in on your computer and trash them.

The other is to visit the FAQ section on the programs website. Most of the time they would list the best way to remove the program.
 
SebZen said:
I have not used this Virus Barrier but I would suspect you simply didn't remove it right. Sometimes dragging the icon to the trash can is not how you remove applications. It may be an option within the anti virus interface itself, within System Preferenes or a script.

Next time you want to remove something I suggest two things:

First download a program called AppCleaner. It's a simple to use program (and free) where all you have to do is drag the application icon into a box and it will search all files related to in on your computer and trash them.

The other is to visit the FAQ section on the programs website. Most of the time they would list the best way to remove the program.
Click to expand...

I found all the files with Appzapper, used Intego's uninstaller, then made sure each file Appzapper found was gone, then searched my system with spotlight.

I emailed Intego, they basically assumed I was trying to pirate their software, and didn't answer me.
 
That's why you don't install anti-virus software on a mac. They are all basically viruses within themselves, and this one, along with Norton, are extremely hard to get rid of. If you are smart about what you download, you will not get viruses.
 
So in other words, you used up your trial period, and you're grumpy that although it is having no effect on your system at all, you can't do another trial?

It's possible it may be phoning home to check on prior trial status, or it is possible there is a file somewhere in which case unless it's doing harm or chewing up CPU cycles who cares? If you don't like it, don't download trial software. You certainly can't expect manufacturers to give full trial software and not have something like that to keep abusers from just installing every 30 days and never paying.

The other option is that they give some crippled version to demo, which sucks even more.

and as for it popping up, that's exactly what an antivirus software SHOULD do, to keep any virus from shutting it down.
 
pprior said:
So in other words, you used up your trial period, and you're grumpy that although it is having no effect on your system at all, you can't do another trial?
Click to expand...

Yes.

It's possible it may be phoning home to check on prior trial status, or it is possible there is a file somewhere in which case unless it's doing harm or chewing up CPU cycles who cares? If you don't like it, don't download trial software.
Click to expand...

No, companies shouldn't be leaving behind little files like that, treating their customers like pirates, and not documenting the file anywhere, and not providing any instructions on how to remove it.

You certainly can't expect manufacturers to give full trial software and not have something like that to keep abusers from just installing every 30 days and never paying.
Click to expand...

They should be expected not to treat every single user as a pirate, though. I understand why they did it, but it's still not a very nice practice.

and as for it popping up, that's exactly what an antivirus software SHOULD do, to keep any virus from shutting it down.
Click to expand...

Actually, thats a good point.
 
I wasn't happy with Intego's product either.
It just won't uninstall cleanly, leaving itself in the menu bar. I'm going to reinstall my OS X on the weekend just to get rid of Intego VirusBarrier. :mad:
 
Jethryn Freyman said:
Yes.



No, companies shouldn't be leaving behind little files like that, treating their customers like pirates, and not documenting the file anywhere, and not providing any instructions on how to remove it.



They should be expected not to treat every single user as a pirate, though. I understand why they did it, but it's still not a very nice practice.
Click to expand...

Well how would you handle it? Just trust that people won't abuse the system? I'm just not seeing the big deal.
 
I had this very same issue before but got rid of it without having to reinstall OSX. There is an uninstaller program on their site for taking off Virus Barrier X5. As for the icon in the taskbar at the top, I had to hunt down the file to delete it. Found it but had to shut down the processes before I could delete it. I used APPZAPPER to get rid of excess files as well. As for the netupdate icon thing in the system preference, you can get rid of that in the preferencepane folder located in the library folder of your mac hd.
Hope this helps a little?
-Tony
 
Jethryn Freyman said:
It wouldn't be that bad, but they're refusing to tell me where to find the file, and they're calling me a pirate.
Click to expand...

How did they call you a "pirate?" Per your earlier post, they simply didn't answer you. Stop putting words in peoples/companies mouths. That's juvenile and arguably worse than anything they did or didn't do to you.
 
Achiever said:
How did they call you a "pirate?" Per your earlier post, they simply didn't answer you. Stop putting words in peoples/companies mouths. That's juvenile and arguably worse than anything they did or didn't do to you.
Click to expand...

They said they you can only install their software once. I can read between the lines.
 
Sorry to resurrect this old thread - but I just wanted to post that I had a problem with this product too, all the way here in 2010. I couldn't uninstall Netupdate and Virus Barrier as I would any other program. Fortunately, they have an uninstaller on their website, as someone mentioned, but I wanted to provide the URL so that anyone else finding this thread can easily uninstall the programs from their computers.

It worked perfectly. It's a .dmg linked to a little way down the page.

http://support.intego.com/kb/index.php?x=&mod_id=2&id=214

Eric
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back