What is also popular at the moment is a pop-up inside your mail-client when avast thinks your password is too weak for your mail client account. In such a case they will serve up a password generator to create a more solid one. I experienced this inside avast secure browser reading my ISP’s mail client’s mail.
Anyways it is better then to check your mail addresses against online repositories like https://haveibeenpwned.com
It is like giving your address to a tombola service, later you are spam-mailed out of your socks.
And who can tell haveibeenpwned could not go commercial one day with all that data they sit on there?
But no-one said the Interwebz isn’t a dangerous place to be on.
Well Kaspersky’s fate was sealed when it told officials in the USA about data leaks by a worker of an American subcontractor.
The violator is inside the slammer now, but the “fourteen eyes” do not trust Kaspersky Lab any longer with that knowledge.
How unfortunate, good deeds can be punished, so Kaspersky Lab has lost the trust the USA government and those of allied nations.
gadzooks! bitdefender and kaspersky both offer free versions? where was i when this happened? thought i checked 1½-2 years ago. :o thanks for the back-slap, claudiubotezatu … gonna’ consider my options over the weekend. regards.
Giving Windows Defender a try on two systems, (Gaming ones so far) while I like the no ad aspect, and silence it provides, just not 100 percent sure on the protection aspect, despite it scored great this time in Av-Test latest results.
Though did use Avast for a long long time, still using it on 3rd Desktop so far, as that machine we usually do our online shopping, banking, bill paying, so uneasy to try that one on Defender as yet, plus it’s older Desktop with Windows 10 still, but processor speed and memory isn’t as much as the gaming system, (16gb on this one) 8gb on 3rd Desktop
If i’m making a mistake switching so soon after this information came out, then oopsy lol, always can disable defender aspects and reinstall Avast Free if need be
Unless Defender isn’t good to use, though recommended by a lot of other sites lol
The last time I tried Panda it was a cloud-based scanner. So nope, no thanks to that bs. I want my AV to be local and not connect to the internet without my consent. I don’t feel like sending hashes or whatever of every file on my machine to some server. Nope. No way.
And what about sending your data to some av-solution’s adserver?
How would they give you a specific pop-up then? HTTPS-scanning you.
Internal workings of the av-solution, like it always was?
Marketing comes balanced from adserver and webserver,
and often clouddriven. Better when it is all done by in-house developers.
Big IT too surveillance minded data-grabbers,
That is not what I said. I give consent to do certain things. Like downloading definition files and stream updates. And then comparing my local files to that local set of definitions. Nothing more should happen. And I don’t consent to more than that.
Major program updates are announced as being available. I then manually confirm the update when it suits me. Many times when an emercengy update happens I manually instruct my firewall to allow it. Because it is an unknown executable trying to connect to outside, so my firewall will block it and alert me.
Well you could lose a lot of functionality, that may require cloud checking. Hardened Mode, Reputation Services, CyberCapture and possibly Behaviour mode. I guess you would have to disable those.
Your acceptance of the Avast EULA would allow for more than you think “Nothing more should happen. And I don’t consent to more than that.” should happen.
There comes a time when you have disabled more than you enable in your AV, is it time to look for a solution that better suits your requirements.
All those things are disabled. Always have been. I only use three Core Shields. Not behaviour shield. That is it.
I use what I need. The rest gets disabled. And blocked and/or forcibly removed if need be. I am in control. Period.
About the EULA: speaking in general, not just the Avast EULA; agreeing to a EULA does not mean everything in it is allowed or legal. A company can put in its UELA that I have to give up my firstborn. Doesn’t make it enforceable or legally valid. Local laws supersede EULA’s. A EULA that contains illegal components just means those components are null and void. Something to think about.
This is how I’ve used Avast since before they tacked on most of those mentioned ‘features’. Every so often I check up on what other known AV companies are doing. All the testing is a hassle though. Sadly they all more or less seem to trend towards the cloud. Like everything else.
The thing is that I can’t just switch. That takes a lot of planning and effort. Because I manage machines for family and friends. And this is only doable by keeping a similar set of programs on all of the machines. Not a different AV on each one. So all the people, most of whom are not very computer savvy, would have to relearn the AV and its messages. So yeah, not something done lightly.
I’ve never restricted the AV I have installed on my systems and have been able to perform anything I’ve wanted.
I have associates that I’ve worked with for years who mess with setting and disable/restrict stuff and inevitably get some kind of virus/crap on their systems.
I, on the other hand, have not.
I enable the parts I want and not the rest. It really is that simple. Do you use every feature of every program you have? No, of course not. Nobody does.
I choose the level of protection I feel I need, and I cut out the overprotective and invasive bloat. That suits me just fine. ‘Scary’ anecdotes won’t change that.
Avast used to be a fairly basic, lightweight, and unobtrusive AV. I liked that. Now that it adds all sorts of extra stuff, a lot of which isn’t even AV, I just politely decline the offers to ‘help’ and keep to the basics. When Avast insists, I put my foot down. I always win
I’ve always used the free version and all the protection that’s free is active.
Since I always use a custom install, I omit those parts that aren’t free and I’m able to bypass. https://youtu.be/NiK6_HKKj0k
Anyone remembers that funny moment from years ago when avast! updated during some wrestling fight? Well, we’ve come from that funny moment to this which is totally unfunny. The fact no one from avast! dropped by to comment is also worrying.
