How can i disable in-product pop-up advertisements

Dear Acronis, 

WTF?  Today's update turned Active Protection back on.

If Acronis management thinks that this is a welcome change, they're dead wrong.

Is it corporate arrogance or just engineering competence?

DON'T MESS WITH OUR SETTINGS!!!!!!!

Tom, please confirm that you are using ATI 2018 (the subject matter of this forum). I am not aware of any recent update to ATI 2018. The most recent was in December 2021.

Running the current version of Cyber Protect Home Office.

TomF wrote:

Running the current version of Cyber Protect Home Office.

Hello Tom.

Please comment in the correct topic section because this one is for ATI2018.

Thanks in advance. 

re: True Image 2020

Was installing software on my new computer and noticed True Image amongst my software inventory. That's odd I thought to myself, as I don't recall using it for some time. I wondered, why wasn't this on my last PC. So I installed and was hit with the ads on the bottom right. Came here and noticed the bogus "solutions" provided by Acronis. I then remembered "Ah, that's why I dumped this software! Poor unethical programming!!!" Any company that would do this is second tier and although it's a good program, the hassle is simply not worth it while there are wonderful alternatives. And now...uninstalled. That's the true solution. LOL

Rx wrote:

re: True Image 2020

Was installing software on my new computer and noticed True Image amongst my software inventory. That's odd I thought to myself, as I don't recall using it for some time. I wondered, why wasn't this on my last PC. So I installed and was hit with the ads on the bottom right. Came here and noticed the bogus "solutions" provided by Acronis. I then remembered "Ah, that's why I dumped this software! Poor unethical programming!!!" Any company that would do this is second tier and although it's a good program, the hassle is simply not worth it while there are wonderful alternatives. And now...uninstalled. That's the true solution. LOL

Thanks for your feedback. We will pass the message to the team.

Feel free to participate in the forum anytime you need.

Just logged in to say that these popup ads work really well. I'm assuming here they are intended to turn away paying customers and make them look for another solution from the competitors. Well, they do this just fine.

I woke up this Sunday expecting a full day of well-earned rest, as I had no other plans. Instead I see an ad from this piece of adware that used to be a backup solution some time ago. Well, so it looks like instead of that rest I'll have to spend a lot of time looking for a proper solution now. Or just give up on backups and just store the most important data on my NAS with a RAID, I haven't decided yet.

And yeah, while the ads are extremely annoying and unethical (who has ever heard about ads from paid software?!), it's this "Please come here begging and maybe we'll turn those off just for you" policy that really nailed it. It's beyond ridiculous. It's like buying a car that displays promotions of higher tier models on its windshield right into your face when you're driving and then you have to go to a service to turn it off.

Hello Ekaterina, please add me to the exclusion list for pop-up ads. Thank you very much.

Please add me exclusion list. Of course I still want to see error messages, etc.

Please add my account to the exclusion list for the pop-ups

Please remove my account from the marketing push messages also.  I can't believe there is no checkbox for not showing these.

Please stop the promotional pop ups for '50% off for three years' and all advertisements. I would like to be added to the exclusion list.   Thank You

Jose, Ekatarina, all,

I just red https://kb.acronis.com/content/57373 but this is not good enough. I never opted in to receive advertising from Acronis. So it is not on me to get advertising at least once and I need to disable to receive this in future again. Even worse, this means any new advertising will be delivered to me at least as long till I say - I don't want to see it again.

Please remove me from any future advertising as I DON'T WAT TO SEE IT AT ALL.

I will not move to your Acronis Cyber Protect and so there is nothing you can offer to me.

Thank you in advance

markus szemeliker wrote:

Jose, Ekatarina, all,

I just red https://kb.acronis.com/content/57373 but this is not good enough. I never opted in to receive advertising from Acronis. So it is not on me to get advertising at least once and I need to disable to receive this in future again. Even worse, this means any new advertising will be delivered to me at least as long till I say - I don't want to see it again.

Please remove me from any future advertising as I DON'T WAT TO SEE IT AT ALL.

I will not move to your Acronis Cyber Protect and so there is nothing you can offer to me.

 

Thank you in advance

Hello!

Those promotions are only enabled for legacy products. You can disable the pop-up by clicking the exit button at the top right corner.

We have informed the team about your feedback, and we appreciate it.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Thanks in advance!

Ekaterina wrote:

Hello Bruce,

I've asked my colleagues to exclude your account from the promo campaigns. If you are not signed in to your personal account in the product, please sign in as described in  https://www.acronis.com/support/documentation/ATI2019/#33594.html The changes will be applied then.

Let me know if any assistance is needed.
 

 

I am in the same predicament using Acronis True Image 2019. Seeing Acronis pop ups every time my computer wakes up or restarts. Please be so kind as to ask your colleagues to exclude my account from the promo campaigns as well. Thank you, .....G

guruka khalsa wrote:

Ekaterina wrote:

Hello Bruce,

I've asked my colleagues to exclude your account from the promo campaigns. If you are not signed in to your personal account in the product, please sign in as described in  https://www.acronis.com/support/documentation/ATI2019/#33594.html The changes will be applied then.

Let me know if any assistance is needed.
 

 

I am in the same predicament using Acronis True Image 2019. Seeing Acronis pop ups every time my computer wakes up or restarts. Please be so kind as to ask your colleagues to exclude my account from the promo campaigns as well. Thank you, .....G

Please note that information is very outdated. It's from several years ago so it's dismissed.

Best regards. 

Jose Pedro Magalhaes wrote:

markus szemeliker wrote:

Jose, Ekatarina, all,

I just red https://kb.acronis.com/content/57373 but this is not good enough. I never opted in to receive advertising from Acronis. So it is not on me to get advertising at least once and I need to disable to receive this in future again. Even worse, this means any new advertising will be delivered to me at least as long till I say - I don't want to see it again.

Please remove me from any future advertising as I DON'T WAT TO SEE IT AT ALL.

I will not move to your Acronis Cyber Protect and so there is nothing you can offer to me.

 

Thank you in advance

Hello!

Those promotions are only enabled for legacy products. You can disable the pop-up by clicking the exit button at the top right corner.

We have informed the team about your feedback, and we appreciate it.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Thanks in advance!

This is incorrect. The pop-up can be closed by hitting the exit button, but it will inevitably pop up again at a later point in time. I've received the pop-up around 3-4 times this week alone, with no way to say 'never show me this again'. It sucks because it's pretty much guaranteed me never buying another Acronis product despite it being something I'd otherwise recommend to others.

Disable the adverts for my account or provide me and others another way of permanently disabling the pop-up adverts.

Patrick D. wrote:

Jose Pedro Magalhaes wrote:

markus szemeliker wrote:

Jose, Ekatarina, all,

I just red https://kb.acronis.com/content/57373 but this is not good enough. I never opted in to receive advertising from Acronis. So it is not on me to get advertising at least once and I need to disable to receive this in future again. Even worse, this means any new advertising will be delivered to me at least as long till I say - I don't want to see it again.

Please remove me from any future advertising as I DON'T WAT TO SEE IT AT ALL.

I will not move to your Acronis Cyber Protect and so there is nothing you can offer to me.

 

Thank you in advance

Hello!

Those promotions are only enabled for legacy products. You can disable the pop-up by clicking the exit button at the top right corner.

We have informed the team about your feedback, and we appreciate it.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Thanks in advance!

This is incorrect. The pop-up can be closed by hitting the exit button, but it will inevitably pop up again at a later point in time. I've received the pop-up around 3-4 times this week alone, with no way to say 'never show me this again'. It sucks because it's pretty much guaranteed me never buying another Acronis product despite it being something I'd otherwise recommend to others.

Disable the adverts for my account or provide me and others another way of permanently disabling the pop-up adverts.

Hello! This thread is very old, and right now, it's not possible to remove the pop-ups permanently.

Every time there is a marketing campaign, our legacy products receive these notifications.

All the messages and threads posted in this forum are forwarded to the team and reviewed internally.

Best regards.

Mike Kearney wrote:

Hi Ekaterina,

Please add me to the removal list.

Ditto what everyone else has said.  Thanks, 

This is me again.  After I asked to be removed, for about six months the annoying marketing pop-ups were gone.  They started again a few months ago.  Can you please add me to the removal list again?  And why do I have to ask repeatedly every six months?   

I also have to say that I'm suspicious of Acronis.  There was another thread titled "Disable marketing pop-ups?" which I found using Google.  When I put the title of that thread in the Acronis forum search bar, it says there are no results.  When I put the title of this thread in the Acronis forum search bar, it also says no results.  Is Acronis hiding the threads that are complaining about the marketing pop-ups, so that it will be more difficult for users to figure out how to request to be added to the removal list?  The earlier threads are from 2019 and 2020, so this has been going on for at least 4 years.  

Acronis needs to abandon this marketing plan, or else figure out how to manage it truthfully.  This seems like something that violates EU regulations, and I'm sure Acronis has customers in the EU.  

To reiterate:  Can you please add me to the removal list again? Or remove me from the marketing list, or whatever?  

My email is correct in my profile.  

   -=- Mike

Ekaterina 

I was successfully removed from all pop up ads at my request in 2019 but the pop up ads have restarted as of November 2023 asking me if I want to buy more cloud storage, which I do not use at all. Please remove these pop ups as well. Please confirm. Thanks in advance.

Jeremy, if you are signed in to your Acronis Account on the Account page of your Acronis GUI and the software was activated with a license serial number, then try signing out along with stopping the Acronis Managed Machine Mini background service and setting it to Manual for the Automatic start option in the services control panel.

Hi Folks,   I believe you are all asking the wrong people. Surely this popup feature has to be provided to companies like Acronis by Microsoft. If they are abusing the feature made available to them by Microsoft they should be blocked by Microsoft. My next email will be to Microsoft.

Phill Harden

Australia (where there has to be an opt out option by law!)

Hello! The pop-ups can't be removed permanently on our end. They appear if users have an outdated version of the product every time a new marketing campaign is launched. You can disable them by clicking the exit button at the top. We have informed the team about the inconvenience of the process, and they are aware. Best regards.

I got tired of ads, bloatware, a 20th-century UI, and unintelligible log files.  The ads put me over top. I abandoned my annual subscription and switched to Macrium Reflect.  Nice, modern, well-designed, single-purpose software.  I was really happy to uninstall our Acronis products.

Phill Harden wrote:

Hi Folks,   I believe you are all asking the wrong people. Surely this popup feature has to be provided to companies like Acronis by Microsoft. If they are abusing the feature made available to them by Microsoft they should be blocked by Microsoft. My next email will be to Microsoft.

Phill Harden

Australia (where there has to be an opt out option by law!)

 

I don't think you're correct here. These popups don't look like standard notifications that can be blocked by Windows if you wish. If I'm right, it's just a simple window, and any application can show any window anywhere at any time it wants. This is something very fundamental to most desktop operating systems and can't be changed without redesigning the system from scratch.

It's entirely Acronis to blame here. I just stopped using it because of these popups.

Steve Smith wrote:

Jeremy, if you are signed in to your Acronis Account on the Account page of your Acronis GUI and the software was activated with a license serial number, then try signing out along with stopping the Acronis Managed Machine Mini background service and setting it to Manual for the Automatic start option in the services control panel.

 

Steve,

thanks, this seems to have worked. It also stopped Malwarebytes reporting blocking an attempt to access my PC via the Acronis updater exe. Wish I had known about this sooner! Other folks on here, please try this fix. It’s the first user initiated workaround posted and much better than appealing to Support to turn off popups on the Acronis server!

Could I be added to the exclusion list as well?

It is very disturbing. 

Thanks!

Jeremy, glad the advice helped - I have been using the same approach on my older systems running back-level versions of Acronis for some years after the mess that Acronis created by resetting Backup task settings to defaults that caused lots of other problems - (see forum topic: True Image 2020 -Backup option settings loss) and haven't had any advertising pop ups in that time.

Feridun Bek wrote:

Could I be added to the exclusion list as well?

It is very disturbing. 

Thanks!

Hello! The option of the exclusion list is old and outdated. Currently we don't have that option/doesn't work.

Best regards.

Feridun Bek wrote:

Could I be added to the exclusion list as well?

It is very disturbing. 

Thanks!

If you are signed in to your Acronis Account on the Account page of your Acronis GUI and the software was activated with a license serial number, then try signing out along with stopping the Acronis Managed Machine Mini background service and setting it to Manual for the Automatic start option in the services control panel.  This should stop you getting the pop up adverts as Acronis won't be communicating back to base! 

Steve Smith wrote:

 

If you are signed in to your Acronis Account on the Account page of your Acronis GUI and the software was activated with a license serial number, then try signing out along with stopping the Acronis Managed Machine Mini background service and setting it to Manual for the Automatic start option in the services control panel.  This should stop you getting the pop up adverts as Acronis won't be communicating back to base! 

Steve, I tried that a day or so ago, and just now got another pop-up.  So it didn't work for me.  I logged out per your instructions, but I'm still using Acronis True Image.  Do you think I need to stop using the product for your method to work?   

Thanks for the help.   

Mike, have you double checked that the background Acronis Managed Machine Service Mini service has been stopped along with not being logged in to your Acronis Account in the ATI GUI Account page (top right)?  I have been using this approach for around 2 - 3 years without seeing any pop-ups for systems running versions from 2014 to 2021.  The MMSM background service communicates with the Acronis servers where the version check would be identified in order to serve any adverts.

You may also want to check what other background Acronis services / processes you have running if you are seeing pop-up adverts when not running an Acronis backup operation.  Only the Scheduler service is actually needed for most GUI operations unless you are using Non Stop, Sync, or Mobile Backup options.

Yeah, I just checked services.msc and AMMSM is still stopped and on manual.  Both the Mobile services were already stopped and on manual.  I just changed the Sync Agennt Service to stopped and manual.  What about the Acronis Active Protection (TM) Service, is that needed?  

Aside from that, the only Acronis services running are the Scheduler2 service and the Nonstop Backup Service.   

I'll report back on whether I see any more pop-ups.  Thanks a million, Steve.  

Hi

Please disable the advertising pop ups on my account.

Thanks

Richard

Yesterday (12/1/2023):  (Didn't send for some reason)

Steve, I tried that a day or so ago, and just now got another pop-up.  So it didn't work for me.  I logged out per your instructions, but I'm still using Acronis True Image.  Do you think I need to stop using the product for your method to work?   

Today (12/2/2023):  

Just got another pop-up.  Just checked and everything I disabled is still disabled on services.msc.  The only Acronis services running are Active Protection (TM), Nonstop Backup, and Scheduler2.  Can I also stop any of those and still have True Image do my backups?  

Ah, I just had a thought.  I haven't rebooted.  Do I need to reboot to have Services.msc changes take effect?  I'll do that later today and let everyone know if that did it.  

Thanks for the help, Steve.  

Please disable the advertising pop ups on my account.

Thanks

Please disable the advertising pop ups on my account.

Thanks

Please disable the advertising pop ups on my account.

Thanks

Please disable the advertising pop ups on my account.

Thanks

Mike Kearney wrote:

Yesterday (12/1/2023):  (Didn't send for some reason)

Steve, I tried that a day or so ago, and just now got another pop-up.  So it didn't work for me.  I logged out per your instructions, but I'm still using Acronis True Image.  Do you think I need to stop using the product for your method to work?   

Today (12/2/2023):  

Just got another pop-up.  Just checked and everything I disabled is still disabled on services.msc.  The only Acronis services running are Active Protection (TM), Nonstop Backup, and Scheduler2.  Can I also stop any of those and still have True Image do my backups?  

Ah, I just had a thought.  I haven't rebooted.  Do I need to reboot to have Services.msc changes take effect?  I'll do that later today and let everyone know if that did it.  

Thanks for the help, Steve.  

Well, to follow up on my note above, after I rebooted, the nagging Acronis advertisements seemed to quit... for awhile.  For about two weeks.  Then they started up again, and now I'm getting them daily again.  In Services.msc, the only Acronis services running are Active Protection (TM), Nonstop Backup, and Scheduler2.  The others (Managed Machine Service Mini, Mobile Backup Server and Mobile Backup Status Server) are all off and manual. I don't want to disable the three still running, because I suspect it will affect my backup processes.  

Steve or anyone... does anyone know which service these ads are coming from?  And can it be disabled and still schedule backups with True Image? 

These ads are especially annoying and frequent during this time of year.  It seems like when  Ekaterina removes someone's account from the promotion ads, they stop for about six months.  So, Ekaterina, if you're listening, please remove my account from the promotion ads.  I'll talk to you again in six months.  And if it hasn't been stated frequently enough already, I object strongly to the whole concept of these promotional ads.  

Well, to follow up on my note above, after I rebooted, the nagging Acronis advertisements seemed to quit... for awhile.  For about two weeks.  Then they started up again, and now I'm getting them daily again.  In Services.msc, the only Acronis services running are Active Protection (TM), Nonstop Backup, and Scheduler2.  The others (Managed Machine Service Mini, Mobile Backup Server and Mobile Backup Status Server) are all off and manual. I don't want to disable the three still running, because I suspect it will affect my backup processes.

Mike, of the three active Acronis services, Non Stop is only needed if you use that particular type of backup task otherwise it can be stopped / disabled.  

Scheduler2 is a required service for the purpose of allowing your backup tasks to run without manual intervention but it also runs a number of additional background scheduled entries which also include Google Analytics! 
Note: you can use the Acronis Scheduler Manager tool to see and removed scheduled entries, or use the MVP Assistant tool which also shows these and provides an interface the Acronis tool.

Active Protection is a difficult one as it is designed not to be stopped as part of anti-ransomware protection for your backup files and will be communicating with Acronis servers to fulfil its role, so a likely cause of the unwanted marketing messages because may also be communicating your old Acronis version information!

In essence, the only sure methods of stopping these unwanted marketing intrusions would be one of the following options:

Identify and block all outgoing / incoming Acronis network communications which may not be practical if backing up to network drives / NAS or the Acronis Cloud etc!

Uninstall Acronis and replace with an alternative backup solution. See forum topic: Reflecting on a Post-ATI World which has a lengthy discussion on alternatives!  Note: Macrium is also moving to subscription only away from perpetual / free versions as of the end of this year! 

A third option, not recommended, would be to identify all background Acronis processes (as distinct to Services) and prevent these from running automatically.  The risk of doing so is to break the application or core functionality or cause additional error logging from malfunctioning Acronis components!

Mike Kearney wrote:

Mike Kearney wrote:

Yesterday (12/1/2023):  (Didn't send for some reason)

Steve, I tried that a day or so ago, and just now got another pop-up.  So it didn't work for me.  I logged out per your instructions, but I'm still using Acronis True Image.  Do you think I need to stop using the product for your method to work?   

Today (12/2/2023):  

Just got another pop-up.  Just checked and everything I disabled is still disabled on services.msc.  The only Acronis services running are Active Protection (TM), Nonstop Backup, and Scheduler2.  Can I also stop any of those and still have True Image do my backups?  

Ah, I just had a thought.  I haven't rebooted.  Do I need to reboot to have Services.msc changes take effect?  I'll do that later today and let everyone know if that did it.  

Thanks for the help, Steve.  

Well, to follow up on my note above, after I rebooted, the nagging Acronis advertisements seemed to quit... for awhile.  For about two weeks.  Then they started up again, and now I'm getting them daily again.  In Services.msc, the only Acronis services running are Active Protection (TM), Nonstop Backup, and Scheduler2.  The others (Managed Machine Service Mini, Mobile Backup Server and Mobile Backup Status Server) are all off and manual. I don't want to disable the three still running, because I suspect it will affect my backup processes.  

Steve or anyone... does anyone know which service these ads are coming from?  And can it be disabled and still schedule backups with True Image? 

These ads are especially annoying and frequent during this time of year.  It seems like when  Ekaterina removes someone's account from the promotion ads, they stop for about six months.  So, Ekaterina, if you're listening, please remove my account from the promotion ads.  I'll talk to you again in six months.  And if it hasn't been stated frequently enough already, I object strongly to the whole concept of these promotional ads.  

Hello,

I hope this message finds you well. I wanted to bring to your attention that, unfortunately, the option to remove users from the pop-ups no longer exists, as mentioned in other threads.

Our team has informed us that these pop-ups will be displayed during promotional campaigns, and currently, we don't have specific information about when they will cease. We understand the inconvenience this may cause for some users, and we have conveyed this feedback to our team. We hope that, in the future, there will be a change in this behavior.

Best regards.

Jose, understand, but I'm guessing there's not a *technical* reason they can't be stopped, only a *policy* reason.  

Steve, thanks for the great insights.  Blocking Acronis at the windows firewall may work for one of my PCs, but not the other two.  Actually, I'm very confident of my router firewall and not too concerned about ransomware, so maybe I'll try stopping the Active Protection service (temporarily or long-term?) and see if that stops the ads.  I'll try to remember to report back here on the results.  

Thanks again, Steve!        -- Mike

Jose, Acronis should give all users an option to Opt Out of this type of intrusive advertising on their personal computers or else make this an Opt In that users can choose to enable via their Acronis Account!  This behaviour does nothing to promote Acronis products and may actually do the reverse in driving users away from using Acronis and towards their competitors who respect their wishes!

Please remove me from receiving any more of these ads. From my understanding, this is illegal under Canada (where I live) law. Being able to disable a pop-up for a single offer does (as is the only "unsubscribe" functionality stated here [I wasn't permitted to post hyperlinks, so I had to remove it]) not qualify as unsubscribing to my knowledge of Canadian law. It needs to be obvious, and be able to prevent future - and now unsolicited - advertisements. The cost as stated by law (again, to my understanding of it) is up to 1 million CAD$ a day, per affected.

For more information on this, you can read it here. [I wasn't permitted to post hyperlinks, so I had to remove it]

Mackenzie Storey wrote:

Please remove me from receiving any more of these ads. From my understanding, this is illegal under Canada (where I live) law. Being able to disable a pop-up for a single offer does (as is the only "unsubscribe" functionality stated here [I wasn't permitted to post hyperlinks, so I had to remove it]) not qualify as unsubscribing to my knowledge of Canadian law. It needs to be obvious, and be able to prevent future - and now unsolicited - advertisements. The cost as stated by law (again, to my understanding of it) is up to 1 million CAD$ a day, per affected.

For more information on this, you can read it here. [I wasn't permitted to post hyperlinks, so I had to remove it]

Hello!

I was informed there is no way to permanently disable them. You can simply exit them every time they appear. This thread is old and outdated.

Recently in fact we had marketing campaigns every month and that's why you receive those pop-ups so frequently.

I am sorry for any inconvenience but for now that's the information I have. 

Best regards.