Protegent is an antivirus software originating from India. Their commercials, like this one from 2017, featuring their superhero mascot named Proto.
I lost my data!
Synopsis[]
The ad starts with a person (who uses the same Proto model, except he has a small mustache) working at his laptop, when a "WARNING" blue screen of death appears on his screen. He answers with "Oops, my system crashed. I lost my data, but I have an antivirus!"
Proto then appears, saying that antivirus isn't enough and he needs Protegent. After a few seconds of talk, the camera zooms into the computer screen, and the logo and packages appear. Joel from Vinesauce pointed out that Protegent sounds more "like dental cream for your ass."
Why It's Cursed[]
The company is infamous for its mascot being an obvious recolor of Whyatt from Super Why. Protegent became more of a meme when Twitch streamer Vargskelethor showed the ads, after discovering Protegent during a stream which involved him destroying Windows Vista. In 2019, a screenshot of this commercial captioned with "Yes" also became a meme, which started to spread on Reddit. On a side note, Protegent also released a few ads presented in a 2D style, with them also being criticized for their stiff animation, another famous one being the Protegent Rap, notorious for the obviously bad English lyrics. The rap lyrics are in the Protogent Rap article here.
Trivia[]
- Originally, all the commercials were uploaded by the official Unistal YouTube channel, however they have all since been deleted.
- After the meme went viral, Unistal actually changed the Protegent mascot (Proto) on the Protegent website to look less like Whyatt from Super Why. Even with this in mind, it still looks exactly the same with the change of the character from being 2D to becoming 3D, which also seemed to make it just creepier. The creator of Super Why!, Angela C. Santomero, was notified by this on one of her YouTube videos (3 years ago), and she was even aware of it, too.
- Proto has gone through 3 voice changes for all three commercials, all of which most people can point out.
- The Protegent ads were viewable on YouTube as actual ads, but after Vinesauce Joel (as well as several other youtubers digging deep into Protegent's history and usefulness) exposed the ads as obvious scams, the ads were retconned.
- You have to pay 15.00 for the application, 25.00 for total security, and 40.00 for complete security. meaning the buyer would have to pay roughly around 80.00 for an antivirus program that does basically nothing.
- If Protegent wasn't a scam, it still wouldn't be a data recovery software, as it encrypts data, making it unrecoverable.
- Protegent is also a spyware, considering you use it to monitor students and workers (like lanschool). So, you would basically be deleting spyware with spyware.
- It had a 2020 Remastered version. And in that one. Instead of the blue screen with yellow text in the computer, it turned into a white screen, And there is chat bubble dialogue reading the characters voices, and proto's model had changed.
Transcript[]
Oops, my system crashed,
I lost my data, but I had an antivirus! (Proto appears)
Antivirus is not enough!
You need Protegent.
World's only antivirus with data recovery software. Think beyond antivirus, think Protegent.