Avast using scare tactics to encourage people to buy the vfull product

I’ve been an Avast user for a number of years. I’ve been happy with it’s performance, though not at all happy with their policy of ‘bumping-up’ the price after the ‘introductory’ year. Today’s complaint is different: pop-up messages warning that hackers could take control of my webcam. As an example, when you click on the provided link, the program switches on my webcam, with a message saying “This is what hackers can see”. Of course, nowhere does it mention that the program is actually supposed to prevent any unauthorised access to my computer. Cheap trick: this does NOT prove that my computer is easily hacked! Also, the repeated warnings popping-up in the corner of the screen, warning of various other ‘problems’. These quickly become tiresome: why not just send me an occasional email, extoling the virtues of ‘upgrading’ to the full version.

I find these things VERY intrusive: I’m very likely to change to another anti-virus program, one which just does its job!

If you have the paid version of Avast Premium, then you can switch the ads off, users of the Avast Free version can’t.

Check your Avast UI > Menu > Settings > General > Personal Privacy section and uncheck those options you don’t want.

See attached image (which is of the free version), but this is from an earlier version, but I think they are still in the same place and the paid version has more options.