VPN Upsell

[Lth651]

You need to get rid of the upsell for the VPN on the main screen of Malwarebytes 5 Beta. It does nothing to enhance the look of the app and it's unnecessary.

[digmorcrusher]

44 minutes ago, Lth651 said:

You need to get rid of the upsell for the VPN on the main screen of Malwarebytes 5 Beta. It does nothing to enhance the look of the app and it's unnecessary.

Yup, I hate it.

[brad03]

althought i use the VPN i have to agree with the above a paid product should the at least have the ability to hide these alerts. 

Edited November 8, 2023 by brad03

[southerndoc]

This is ridiculous.  I may cancel my Malwarebytes subscription.  DNSFilter is logging tons of hits with its VPN.  I do not want a VPN with my malware service.  Please allow us to turn it off.

[GordonTX]

I feel strongly the VPN upsell window in the dashboard should have a removal option.

At very least, you should recognize when another vendor's VPN is in use.

If this remains in the next incremental I will terminate my 10 little licenses  and I'll find another supplier.  Vote with my dollars.

Thanks for considering.

[H4V0C]

On 4/15/2024 at 7:26 AM, southerndoc said:

This is ridiculous.  I may cancel my Malwarebytes subscription.  DNSFilter is logging tons of hits with its VPN.  I do not want a VPN with my malware service.  Please allow us to turn it off.

 

2 hours ago, GordonTX said:

I feel strongly the VPN upsell window in the dashboard should have a removal option.

At very least, you should recognize when another vendor's VPN is in use.

If this remains in the next incremental I will terminate my 10 little licenses  and I'll find another supplier.  Vote with my dollars.

Thanks for considering.

Thank you for the feedback. Although we're not able to provide a release date at this time, I can confirm we're exploring solutions for improving the product dashboard and possibly allow customizations.

[southerndoc]

2 minutes ago, H4V0C said:

 

Thank you for the feedback. Although we're not able to provide a release date at this time, I can confirm we're exploring solutions for improving the product dashboard and possibly allow customizations.

Thanks for looking into it.  Hopefully it's fixed before my renewal date.  If not, I'll cancel and move on.  Once I cancel, chances are I will never come back (both for personal and business/enterprise accounts).

[kassha]

a 1000 times yes, I agree with this. 
VPNs are important in some situations. I use a VPN, but presenting it on my dashboard as something that is 1. Off 2. shows a (potential) IP location of your VPN 3. Saying my connection is public, is displaying information for something I have not chosen to purchase. One of my machines is a Mac. In that example not only is this hard sale a huge part of my dashboard but when I go to settings I am taken to another VPN page and I need to click through it to get to my settings. The money grab for VPNs is a gross place. They have their touchpoint in security but the fear mongering that is going on and the deception that has been pointing to them being a one stop for online security is just wrong. Don't go down this path please. You have a good reputation.

The "your connection is public" part of the VPN section on my dashboard is straight up misinformation. You don't know anything about my connection. Many people don't know anything about networks and VPNs and in their case, this is a dark pattern and it is trying to fear them into clicking your many attempts to have them buy. 
Honestly the hard part about this goes beyond the annoying sales and UX trickery.

This affects my trust in a product that I really need to trust. I can't imagine that it's only the "VPN team" that is careless like this. 

[jee75]

@kasshaThe simple explanation is, the sleazy Malwarebyte CEOs simply don't care. They're answering to the shareholders, not the users.

As long as this greedy UI brings in more VPN upsell and therefore more cash in their pockets, they simply don't care. It's as simple as that. I recommend you do as I did, cancel your subscription.

[Lth651]

I wouldn’t necessarily cancel my subscription for that reason alone. I think the Mac OS version should scan files being downloaded to ensure they are safe before being executed. 

[jee75]

@Lth651 Yeah but that's not what this post is about, now is it. It's about the VPN upsell and annoying Settings pane.

[jee75]

@Lth651 @kassha I just got a reply from a mod in here, from another thread about the upsell. . They said:

Quote

As Malwarebytes' management is already aware of some user's negative opinion of the new GUI, there is not much more to be done at this time.

 

So there you have it. They don't care. How do we know this? Because if they cared about out feedback, they'd fixed it months ago. So for those of you that don't cancel your subscription, please enjoy the fact that you're rewarding this anti-consumer behaviour. That's the depressing fact. Corporate greed knows no bounds, and Malwarebytes is no exception.

[Aryna]

Dear all, we hear your concerns and your feedback, we are very grateful that you take time to share your thoughts.
I can assure you it didn't go unnoticed, however, it takes time to redesign and account for all the needs of different user groups. It's a work in progress, please bear with us.

As for the Settings page opening inconvenience, we're working on getting the updated General settings to open as soon as you hit the Settings button in the next release at the end of September.
It's not been intentional to open VPN settings to upsell VPN, it's more of a technical limitation at the moment of launch of the new Malwarebytes 5 that the General settings were implemented in a form of a dialog window & we had to work around to make the new design co-exist with that dialog window. 
Please keep your feedback coming and stay tuned for the upcoming release announcements where we'll share more details about the upcoming changes.

[GordonTX]

My feedback, as requested, is that the 6 months of excuses about the disrespectful VPN UPSELL BLARING IN OUR FACE and the false statement that we are unprotected with any other VPN than yours...its time to stop making lame excuses; they're stale by now. The excuses have no more credibility.  The corporate vague-speak earns you disrespect in return,  from the user community.  If y'all can't make the changes by renewal time, my 10 little licenses will find another home.  I might be the smallest customer who is posting here, but I will vote with my dollars.

[msherwood]

Hi everyone. I'm Michael and lead our product team here. Firstly, thanks so much for reaching out and sharing your feedback and concerns. It's always great to hear what's frustrating you - or even things we're doing awesomely. :)

Secondly and in another similar thread, I posted some thoughts on why Malwarebytes is evolving and what you can expect in our products (read more here). After hearing from some users, I shared some thoughts on what we're thinking to do next (read more here).

Suggest everyone reads the links above and then let's continue the conversation.

[jee75]

On 8/28/2024 at 11:27 PM, msherwood said:

Suggest everyone reads the links above and then let's continue the conversation.

I did read it and I'm not impressed. You had no qualms about moving to a version 5, solely motivated by greed and VPN upsell. I'm not naive. The VPN upsell is the only reason version 5 exists, as it provides an excuse to change the UI and implement said greedy upsell. It's blatantly obvious. Another example of the shittyfication of a product due to unchecked corporate greed.

I have worked at corporations, and also heard from other who have worked at big corporations, where greed is running rampant. It normalised now. Shareholder and internal developer meetings often are about "How can we squeeze the most amount of cash from our gullible customers, without getting in trouble with the law?".

You say you need to make quite a bit of changes to pull off adding a "Hide VPN" slider. And who's fault is that? Upper management and yours, that's who. Cry me a river.

You had ample time and ample opportunity to listen to beta feedback about the unwanted VPN upsell, and then provide a solution before roll-out. But no, you chose to ignore the user feedback, in order to please shareholders with dollar signs in their eyes.

That's all I have to say.

[Lth651]

I often buy software that, once installed and running, doesn't satisfy my expectations. When that happens, I abandon it and move on. Think about why you're investing so much anger in a piece of software.

Edited 7 hours ago by Lth651
too many words