Avast Free 23.5 creates new registry keys for safeprice plugin. - SOLVED/FIXED

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hi,
just installed Avast 23.5 and noticed, when i open Chrome, it automatically opens chrome web store with safeprice add-on, this create new registry keys:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\⾠㙵ʂ\BrowserExtensions\SP\chrome]
“installtabopened”=hex(b):d4,0f,76,64,00,00,00,00

This happen again after every chrome launch, safe price site open agains and create new registry key, everything is the same except “⾠㙵ʂ” which is switched to another chinese symbol. This causes bloat in registry. Please fix it or remove this offer completely.

Avast Free 23.5.6066
Windows 10 22h2 64bit

Update: This issue is fixed in version 23.5.8195.786

2

Hello, thank you for reporting. Good catch. We will fix it in next version.

Petr

3

Thank you for answer. Although I would expect this will be fixed by some emergency update. If is not possible fix it this way, safe price add-on offer should be disabled completely until fix will be released.

I have to delete those keys manually very often, its so annoying.

4

Fix it as soon as possible, obviously before the next release, this is very annoying.

5

Resolve as soon as possible with an emergency release. This bug is very annoying.
Thank you

6

This leaves a bad image for me about Avast. I installed a security program not a bloatware app. It’s enough that we have so much bloatware in it that we have to do a custom install (software updater, Avast Browser, Google Chrome bundle, etc.) Now constant nags to install a shopping extension that breaks Google Maps functionality and some other sites if you read the Extension Reviews on Google!

7

Tragedy! Same thing happens with firefox.

Avast is starting to look like a PUA.

Someone please fix this because it can’t go on like this for long…

8

It’s not only Chrome of Firefox. It’s the default browser. Avast Free 23.5.6066 (build 23.5.8195.785) keeps opening as a tab this /addon/avast-safeprice/ web page.
And nothing helps to stop this behavior.
uBlock Origin or uMatrix will block and stop the tab from loading, but that’s not the idea. It shouldn’t be forced to begin with.
Please stop pushing products via the default browser.
There are too many different operating systems and browsers, and you can’t expect a good outcome promoting products this way.

Btw, at each occurrence a new set of Chinese characters registries is created in Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER and Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. And there are MANY sets. It’s unlikely that a fix can clean the registry.
I’m going to restore the computer at a time before the new Avast build came out and wait for a fix.

9

Also in AVG !!

10

This also happens every time I start Firefox. It is super-annoying!
I don’t want nor need the SafePrice extension.
Please fix ASAP. I tried every possible trick in the book, but nothing works.

11

Is this a Chrome browser extension or something else? If it’s the former, can’t it be simply removed from your browser like you can any extension, or does it keep adding itself when you remove it?

12

If you remove it, it will keep nagging you to install it. I uninstalled Avast completely now. Had enough with their bloatware.

13

I dint find anything in Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, only in Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Can you please post screenshot what you find in Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT?

This should be deeply investigated and Avast team should tell us, where in registry we have to clean.

BTW you dont need restore your computer, just delete those chinese symbols in Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER.

14

After further investigation I found out that the Chinese characters registries in Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT were created by TeamViewer portable and Google Earth portable.
Avast Free 23.5 creates Chinese Registries in HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Running now Avast Free 23.4 with zero issues, no more Chinese characters registries.

15

I doubt this bug will spread somewhere else in registry, we just need often clean Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER

16

News?!

17

Can you give us an answer? Will you fix this annoying bug as soon as possible?!

18

You already have the answer in this topic.

19

That’s not a direct answer to the new question, it’s a previous statement which was then followed up on with a new question that has a counter proposal for the timeline to have something fixed.

Petr said “we’ll fix it by x” when the problem was brought up. Several people have asked “can you fix it earlier than x?”, to which he hasn’t responded. If the answer is “no, we can’t” or even “no, we won’t” then he should at least answer so that people who haven’t updated can just simply wait until the next version and stop checking, and the people who have already updated can roll back to a previous version and potentially fix their registry with a system restore or manual intervention, and it means everyone can stop checking this thread as we know it’ll be roughly another month or so before this problem is fixed.

They should also post and pin a new thread, or update the current one that states this issue exists in bolded text, and I would also suggest they go as far to state on their main website that version 23.5 contains this issue and is being fixed, and offer a direct link to 23.4.

Doesn’t seem like a lot to ask for. Seems like the bare minimum, actually. But maybe others feel different.

20

I would have expected a bug fix release before the next release.