Privacy protecting software found harvesting and selling user data, parent fined by Regulatory

Do you use Avast products on any of your devices?

  • Yes

    Votes: 3 8.8%

  • No

    Votes: 31 91.2%
  • Total voters
    34
rootyme

rootyme

Disciple
I am not sure if I am supposed to laugh or cry at this but Avast has pulled off the unthinkable.

www.ghacks.net

Avast has been fined by the FTC for using its privacy software to harvest and sell user data - gHacks Tech News

The U.S. FTC has fined Avast for collecting user data via its privacy software and selling the information to third-parties.
www.ghacks.net

Avast owns AVG, Avira, and Norton. It also owns CCleaner, a browser called Avast "Secure" Browser, extensions for Firefox, Chrome. It even has multiple VPN services such as Avast SecureLine VPN, and HMA (formerly HideMyAss!).
 
Avast was free right from Win XP days when it used to offer a full year's Pro subscription Free of cost to the user.

It so happened that there were few systems guarded by Avast but for some reasons it failed to remove few infections. On those systems tried malwarebytes and combofix tools guess what, few of Avasts files under program files dir. were actually detected as spyware adware etc. incl, the running processes and few here and there which avast failed to detect as red flags!
This was during Win 7/8 era I think.

Tested avast setup on a secondary system already having other av or malwarebytes running and it detected avast files and processes as suspicious.

Avast was very popular back then and even many people around me used it as their loyal av for years before defender made its way. It surely gave a run for money to its competitors.

Would add, any software esp. with systemwide installations and one which comes for free mostly comes with some hidden demerits or risks backed by spying intentions as nobody gives truly Clean free stuff! Better to first try any freebies on sandbox.
 
ajish65 said:
I'm just a regular user and never used Avast itself but was a AVG fan for a while, in 2010-ish. Then later heard a few bad things about that so stopped. Nowadays have avoided all anti-virus software; just dependent on Windows to protect me. :D
Click to expand...
I used to install AVG on win 98 purely for its 3 squared icon.. back then I had icons and cursor fetish. But after trying few Avs on win xp settled on Eset for few years before completely giving up on AVs!
 
There's no point in installing these anti-virus software anymore. They seem to be more malignant than the virus they are supposed to be detecting. I still remember how difficult Avast makes it to uninstall their software from your computer, and I think that is general practice that they tend to leave some traces behind on your computer. With how often Windows Defender is being updated, I think the safest option is to not install anything and stick with Defender. With the size and the amount of funds Microsoft puts into Windows, I think that Defender will be updated frequently enough.
 
rootyme said:
And the same blog has now posted an article promoting Avast Secure Browser!

www.ghacks.net

Maximize Your Online Security with Avast Secure Browser - gHacks Tech News

As the Internet becomes a stage for sophisticated threats and unwelcome surveillance, online privacy and security have become a priority for Internet users everywhere. With every click, search, or visited website, your […]
www.ghacks.net
Click to expand...
Ghacks is owned by Softonic. They earn money by promoting all kinds of software from time to time irrespective of whether they are good or bad.
Ghacks was started by Martin Brinkman but after he sold it, the content has suffered. Very often you will find these Softonic sponsored posts (the one you linked) among genuine ones (like the first Avast one).
 
During my college days, Avast had great respect among my peers for it being light weight and free. Those were the days when people would gobble up anything when offered for free. It's always risky to let an application have unrestricted access to the system's disk data and network as it's almost impossible to tell (unless the user decides to do some sleuthing themself) what data is being sent while these applications performs 'call home'. Some are harmless and just anonymized diagnostic info required for development of the product itself, where as some are downright violations of privacy such as transmission of info regarding the connected network, file system indexes, and so on. While data has become essential for these corporation to continue to exist, it would be better if they complied to the existing frameworks. Unless, it's an indie, open source pet project with no future plans or monetary ambitions, there is no such thing as free! As the internet saying among the privacy communities go "If something is free, you are the product".
 
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