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Complete Frustration with Antimalware Protection and Acronis Tech Support

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ATI 2021 Antimalware quarantined an exe file, with no way to deal with it other than to delete it or give it a protection exclusion. Here is my chat with their tech support.

Rajaraman (12/13/2020, 5:00:27 PM): Hello! Thank you for contacting Acronis Customer Central. My name is Rajaraman and I will be glad to assist you. Please allow me 3-4 minutes to review your message. If you already have an existing case number on this issue, please let me know. Otherwise, I will create a new case and provide you the case number. 
Me (12/13/2020, 5:01:25 PM): New case 
Rajaraman (12/13/2020, 5:04:12 PM): Hi George 
Rajaraman (12/13/2020, 5:04:16 PM): Thank you for your patience, the case number for your reference is:  04709734 
Rajaraman (12/13/2020, 5:05:19 PM): As I understand, Acronis True image 2021 found threat in your machine and you want to know where is quarantine folder to find that file, am I correct? 
Me (12/13/2020, 5:05:35 PM): That's part of it. 
Rajaraman (12/13/2020, 5:06:27 PM): On the Protection dashboard, click Quarantine. 
Rajaraman (12/13/2020, 5:06:50 PM): You will find if any threats are quarantined. 
Me (12/13/2020, 5:07:06 PM): I know that, but that doesn't help me resolve the issue.; 
Rajaraman (12/13/2020, 5:07:58 PM): So you requesting for an feature to know more details about the threat found and make an analysis on that, am I correct? 
Me (12/13/2020, 5:09:44 PM): Yes. All I can see is that in the file location, the Size has changed to 0 KB. How can I test to see if it's a false positive? 
Rajaraman (12/13/2020, 5:10:51 PM): Unfortunately such feature is not available. Active protection and Antivirus scans use the definitions from the Protection database to determine potential threats. If you trust some executable files and folders, you can add them to the Protection exclusions list, so Acronis True Image 2021 will skip them during scanning. 
Rajaraman (12/13/2020, 5:11:12 PM): please refer the below link for more information: wwwdotacronisdotcom/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2021/#52576.html 
Me (12/13/2020, 5:11:30 PM): How do I know whether to trust a file or not? 
Me (12/13/2020, 5:12:25 PM): If I trust it and it really is a virus, I'm in trouble. If I don't trust it, I have no way to tell whether it's a virus or not. 
Rajaraman (12/13/2020, 5:12:57 PM): I completely  understand George, as I told already there is no feature available to check whether to trust a file or not. 
Me (12/13/2020, 5:12:58 PM): The reference you gave me is useless. It only tells me how to trust it or not. 
Rajaraman (12/13/2020, 5:13:16 PM): But I would like to thank you for sharing the feedback with us 
Me (12/13/2020, 5:13:32 PM): Then this feature of TI2021 is basically useless. 
Rajaraman (12/13/2020, 5:13:46 PM): I will ensure that your feedback is highlighted to the Development team and we make the necessary improvements, required to enhance the Customer experience in future versions. 
Me (12/13/2020, 5:14:11 PM): You have been no help at all. I am very disappointed in Acronis and will make that known in my reviews. 
Me (12/13/2020, 5:14:17 PM): Goodbye 
Rajaraman (12/13/2020, 5:14:21 PM): Thank you. 
Rajaraman (12/13/2020, 5:14:49 PM): My apologies for the inconvenience caused to you 
Rajaraman (12/13/2020, 5:14:56 PM): Thank you for contacting Acronis Customer Central. Feel free to get back to us should you have any further questions. Have a Great Day! 

As you can see, there was essentially no support. It was like talking to a script kiddy, not an engineer. This is a very incomplete tool that doesn't provide the support that users need, especially comparing it to other existing antimalware solutions.

Then I turned to the forum to see if there was any information available here. But there isn't a decent search tool; any search items turned up hundreds or thousands of results, basically useless.

1. Can anybody help with the problem of the potential malware?

2. How can I get management's attention about the abysmal support for such a critical aspect of the product?

1 Users found this helpful

I also find the lack of information about files that are quarantined greatly annoying. Unfortunately the Cyber Protection modules of ATI 2021 is, in my opinion, not sufficiently developed to be relied on. For this reason I only use the Malware Protection modules first introduced in ATI 2017, and use Norton 360 for all other threats.

Before disabling the ATI components I had one file repeatedly flagged and quarantined, and it was not flagged by Norton 360, suggesting that it was not in fact a threat. In that case I suspect that it was a file with the same name as the one in the data base but had a different, legitimate file signature. Did a internet search of the file name and there was a file with that name that was considered potentially dangerous.

I suggest giving in-app feedback about this issue - there really needs to be an explanation of why a file is being quarantined. How to send feedback - see here. I suggest including a link to this forum topic in your feedback.

Ian

Thanks, Ian. I will follow up with this feedback channel to them. It's good to know that someone else thinks that their product is not yet ready for prime time. It's time to disable the antimalware and go back to Kaspersky.

George, there are lots of users who are unhappy with the new forced protection features brought in with ATI 2021,   me among them!  I have turned off all protection permanently in ATI 2021 and turned Windows Defender back on which I find to be more than sufficient for my needs.

With regards to searching in these forums, then don't both with the Search tool in the forums themselves, which is again a waste of time!  Use Google and search using:

site:forum.acronis.com followed by your search words...

Example: site:forum.acronis.com ATI 2021 Cyber Protect quarantine  which brought up only 63 hits for me.

Note: when sending Feedback to Acronis, add your vote for Acronis internal change request: TI-213392 Allow installation without Antimalware components - so that users get the option to not install these unwanted extra features that have turned ATI from a Backup & Recovery application into a bloated CPU hog for many users!

how can i get rid of the warning message that comes with acronis 2021 ti that the trial antivirus is expired ?

it is annoying and i would get rid of that message. see picture docx

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bertier benny wrote:

how can i get rid of the warning message that comes with acronis 2021 ti that the trial antivirus is expired ?

it is annoying and i would get rid of that message. see picture docx

Welcome to these public User Forums.

The notice on the Protection page will remain and will only be removed if Acronis decide to do so or else post a different message in that space!

The message in the system tray Acronis notification list you can remove yourself, just hover your mouse over the right end of the message and it should show a 'X' which you can click on to delete the message.

Steve Smith wrote:
bertier benny wrote:

how can i get rid of the warning message that comes with acronis 2021 ti that the trial antivirus is expired ?

it is annoying and i would get rid of that message. see picture docx

Welcome to these public User Forums.

The notice on the Protection page will remain and will only be removed if Acronis decide to do so or else post a different message in that space!

The message in the system tray Acronis notification list you can remove yourself, just hover your mouse over the right end of the message and it should show a 'X' which you can click on to delete the message.

Nope , can not do this there comes no X (wat is happend is date and time where changed and the 3 months trial  is endid in that way . removing acronis from system and reinstalling it does not solve the problem

where can i get rid of this trial message has ended !

Sorry, if you are not seeing an X when hovering your mouse over the message in the system tray icon notification list, then you would need to ask Acronis for further options about removing these messages!

I've used Acronis since v.7.0 (before they started naming by year in 2012!).  I've bought almost every version since, and often multiple copies--as many as five--thru 2017.  I recently bought 2021 after a hiatus of using another product, as I was frustrated by the dumbed-down interface introduced in [2015?], with its wizard-like interface, difficulty finding logs, selecting individual files, etc.  Now with 2021 I'm completely exasperated with the forced Cyber Protection.  I've disabled Startup for all the 10 (ten!) different Acronis processes that run via Task Manager, and turned off the security protection in the Acronis interface.  And, yup, you guessed it, all the modules load anyway.  I've watched my firewall (Windows Firewall Control by binisoft, now purchased by Malwarebytes), and I cannot believe the amount of network traffic Acronis is generating when I'm doing absolutely nothing and have no jobs scheduled whatsoever.  Acronis seems to override manual blocking rules in Windows Firewall (see screenshots).

I'll vote for the suggestion TI-213392 Allow installation without Antimalware components that was recommended above by Steve Smith, and then I'm uninstalling this bloatware called "Acronis 2021."  I'll keep my eye on this to see if they respond to grant the ability to turn these Cyber Protections off.  If not, I won't be back to Acronis.  Too many other good options out there.

Very disappointed in the direction this software has taken.

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Craig Shields wrote:

... difficulty finding logs, selecting individual files, etc. 

 The finding and viewing of logs has been a problem since Acronis removed that facility. However some of our very clever MVP's have filled the void, currently with MVP Assistant - a new tool, including new Log Viewer, available on Community Tools. The tool is very flexible and I find it extremely useful.

Ian

PS I too am annoyed by the direction taken with ATI since ATI 2014. The concentration on Cyber Protection rather than ensuring that key backup and restore components meets the needs of the user community is disappointing to say the least. End of "growl" session.

Craig, most of the network traffic from the ATI 2021 processes is actually going to the local loopback address (127.0.0.1) as a means of communicating within the processes, so I doubt that the Windows Firewall rules are being ignored or overridden.

For the Acronis background services, you need to set the startup for these to be 'Disabled' then restart Windows, but even this will be overridden if the ATI GUI is launched for the protection services!

Thanks for adding your vote for the internal request to allow users to do a selective install without these new unwanted extra protection features!