Out of nowhere I have an Avast SafeZone icon on my desktop. I can’t remember asking for this browser. Has anyone else noticed an new Avast SafeZone icon on there desktop?
You will see many angry user topics in the forums over the last few days, so you aren’t alone.
The avast SafeZone browser was previously only included in paid versions of avast. Unfortunately avast decided to also give it to avast free users (at no cost). I say unfortunately as they never told anyone and they installed it in the background.
User only found out when the desktop icon appeared (if they have icons displayed) or if other security based software drew attention to it. My WinPatrol Plus flagged the new Scheduled Task to update it.
It can be removed in the same way as other avast components Control Panel > Programs & Features > avast antivirus > Change - from the next screen select Modify > uncheck the SafeZone Browser option.
Thanks for the info & the instructions on removing it. My Edge browser has been at a crawl lately & maybe this has something to do with it.
You’re welcome.
The SafeZone Browser is totally independent of Edge or any other browser, so that is unlikely to have been the problem.
I don’t have win10, no Edge, unfortunately I can’t speak from personal experience.
Same problem, part of yesterday’s update. Wiped all my settings to defaults as well, I have it set up to only update the program if I agree but done without my permission.
Avast is becoming malware.
What’s with the crazy captcha?
The captcha is in place to reduce the amount of advertisers, spammers and such.
It is only there the first three posts.
As has been explained many times, the update was done with your permission.
Yes, they could (and should?) have announced it upfront.
They also could have showed a message after installing that it was installed with some information about it.
Fact is that they didn’t and what happened can’t be undone.
I just hope avast is learning from this (in my opinion) major blooper.
Hopefully avast will learn from this “experiment.”