Kaspersky automatically "replacing itself" with Pango Ultra AV

[ky331]

Some US customers of Kaspersky antivirus --- which has been banned by the US government --- were surprised on/after September 19th when they realized, without any notice/permission, it was automatically uninstalled and replaced with Pango UltraAV.  [Other customers did report receiving an email from Kaspersky about the pending transition.]
On its separate webpage, UltraAV had indicated that no action would be required by Kaspersky customers to get their replacement.  And a Kaspersky employee explained in the company forum that the update was implemented to "ensure that users would not experience a gap in protection upon Kaspersky's exit from the market".

Regardless of the explanation/intent, most users were furious to see this could be done to their computers without first getting their explicit consent.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/23/some-kaspersky-customers-receive-surprise-forced-update-to-new-antivirus-software/

[Hat-tip to RoHe at the Dell forum for bringing this to our attention.]