Avast Online Security provides green checkmarks for links to websites considered safe. But if the mouse hovers over such a checkmark, a large green “This site is safe” popup appears, blocking quite a portion of the page from view.
Is there any way to disable this popup from appearing? In most cases the checkmark should be sufficient.
If there is an obvious answer, I appologize for not finding it myself. :-[
The only way I know of is to disable the “avast online security” add-on.
Right click on the icon in the upper right hand corner of your browser. 
But as you can imagine that’s exactly what I do not want to do. Those checkmarks are fine, they’re even great.
But who thought that I did want such ridiculously large popups? On a result page from Google search they mostly block my view from the result entry below it. :o
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to answer my question.
What, in your experience, is the best way to bring this to the attention of the Avast people?
Try using this.
The pop-ups disappear IMHO quite quickly.
Maybe there’s another problem then. On my PC (64 bit Windows 8.1 Pro) with Firefox 25.01 when the mouse stays on the checkmark, the popup stays too. When the mouse leaves the checkmark, the popup disappears after 3 seconds. Do you have another experience?
Great subject ! I too would love to deactivate this annoying popup. I have sent an email to avast on this very subject. If anyone has a solution, other than searching for another free antivirus service, I am all ears. Thank you
That “this site is safe” popup is very very annoying. Also its keeping to long visible and its wrong positioned and to big.
Not wanted to remove the plugin. offcorse i think its double because ghostery is doing lots of things to.
Still try to figuyre out how to configure that.
just remove the big popup and it would be fine small fix for avast and fast to push to people
Thanks for the suggestion of using the contact form @Para-noid. I have echoed there the comments I am about to post here.
One of the great things about Avast is that it has always given excellent threat protection without being in your face.
I’m very pleased to have Avast’s protection in my browser, however I find the green checkmarks after every link that hide the text under them very annoying. The three-second popups that say “This site is safe” are even more aggravating. I am happy to be alerted when Avast actually defends me against a threat or wants to warn me of an actual threat. The current behavior (which is new an unsolicited) significantly reduces readability on a link-rich web page. I hope Avast is able to code in a “Show popups only for threat alerts, not for safe sites” option, which in my opinion would be much more appropriate. Such an option would also be consistent with Avast’s time-honored tradition of being a silent guardian, not the insecure bodyguard who has to say, “Hey, everybody, look at me!”.
Imagine what it would be like if a Secret Service agent on the security detail of a highly placed official insisted on telling his charge, “This person is safe” for every single person passed. That bodyguard is violating a key principle of his vocation, which is to provide protection in a way that is as unobtrusive as possible and does not interfere with the protected individual’s primary activities. Avast would do well to stick to the same principle, as it has consistently done in the past.
Coypu
Great Topic,
Web Rep drives me nuts! The only thing you can do at least in Avast 2014 is in Firefox, go into your Tools and Ad-On Extensions and turn the pop-up off. I found that you also have to restart Firefox from the prompt that says, “Change will take effect when you Restart Firefox. Do you want to restart Firefox Now- Yes/No?” You must hit Yes from the prompt. If you just close out of Firefox manually and restart that way, Web-Rep will still be there.
I don’t know how many people still run IE 8, but in that, you also have to go into Toolbars and Extensions and turn it off. Users with IE 9-11 on later versions of Windows may want to post how to turn off Web-Rep in IE. I prefer My WOT (My Web of Trust) but that is personal preference. Web Rep’s pop-ups are so big and bulky! Avast should do what they did with the excellent use of making the update pop-up and system tray notifications smaller for Web-Rep pop-up notices. Coming back to Avast from years past, I love the smaller notification update/notices box. Too bad that Web Rep isn’t like that.
Jack
I am not able to do that. You can only disable the whole Avast Online Security (version 9.0.2006.53), there’s no separate Web Reputation Plugin setting (Firefox 25.0.1).
Where did you find it?
Agree, and that what i did. turn the whole avast add-on off.
Its not add so much more extra’s already running ad-blocker and ghostery thats blocking everything
Waiying for the day i read a notice in this thread that its fixt or configurable.
But Jack 1000 seems to have a way to disable the pop-ups only ???
Actually, I misspoke slightly,
In Firefox 25 go to Tools/Ad-On’s/EXTENSIONS (Not plug in’s) and you will see Avast Online Security9.XXX. This is Web Rep. Click Disable and click “Do you want to restart Firefox now?” from INSIDE the Add-On’s Tab. If you don’t click restart from inside the Ad-Ons tab Web Rep won’t disable. You have to click from inside the Ad On Tab. Following restart, Web Rep is gone.
It seems that on a fresh install with regard to Firefox you have three choices with regard to killing Web Rep:
1.) On a Default install, just repeat the above steps.
2.) Or do a Custom install and don’t select Web Rep
3.) On a Fresh Avast install when you use Firefox for the first time it will say something like “A program wants to allow this plug-in to run on Firefox.” (That’s Web Rep.) Just say don’t allow or disable and you will get the same results as the above.
Not sure how to kill it for other browsers except IE 8, because I don’t have a later version of Windows.
Jack
I was confused. Is it true then that Avast Web Shield has nothing to do with Avast Online Security? :o
It’s true the web shield has nothing to do with the AOS…
@Jack 1000 WebRep ceased to exist with v2014 it’s now the “avast online security” plug-in.
For what it’s worth I completely disabled it in all of my browsers. I use PriveDog.
Ghostery has its critics…
From Wikipedia…
Criticism
Some sources say that Evidon, the company owning Ghostery, plays a dual role in the online advertising industry. Ghostery blocks sites from gathering personal information. But it does have an opt-in feature named GhostRank that can be checked to “support” them. GhostRank takes note of ads encountered and blocked, and sends that information, though anonymously, back to advertisers so they can better formulate their ads to avoid being blocked.[4]
Thus, not everyone sees Evidon’s business model as conflict-free. “Evidon has a financial incentive to encourage the program’s adoption and discourage alternatives like Do Not Track and cookie blocking as well as to maintain positive relationships with intrusive advertising companies”, says Jonathan Mayer, a Stanford grad student and privacy advocate.[5]
Tom Simonite of Technology Review explains that with the “Ghostrank” feature enabled Ghostery sends collected user data back to the vendor, who then offers it for sale to ad firms.[5] This is also reflected in the German branch of the magazine.[6] Consequently, the German computer magazine Chip comes to the conclusion to not recommend installing the software and suggests NoScript as a (partial) alternative.[7]
According to Evidon, Ghostery does not collect any information which could be used to identify users or target ads specifically at individual users. Additionally, Ghostery would collect data only when Ghostrank is enabled. The collected data would be shared with the Better Business Bureau and offered to university students, researcher as well as journalists to support their studies.[8]
GhostRank, yes i know that…
But… if the user have spend 1 minute to configure ghostery.
then you see its checked by default, first thing you do is offcorse uncheck it.
Thanks everybody. I disabled Avast Internet Security. Now only Firefox and DNTme guard my web actions. 8)
I’ve found an optimal (I think) solution of this problem, at least for Mozilla FF: just made these colored blocks semi-transparent.
opacity: 0.5;
Small green thumb-ups, -downs, -etc. are png-images and can be edited in any editor for raster graphics. Look at …\Avast5\WebRep\FF\content\common\skin\img\se_icn_[color].png (or …\Avast5\WebRep\IE\templates\img\se_icn_[color].png for IE).
Yes, The Avast On-Line Security Plug in (Formerly Web-Rep) if you don’t want that in your Firefox Browser, Disable it in your Firefox Extensions list and Restart Firefox from within the Yes/No prompt in that list.
I would assume that for IE and Chrome, you would have to go into the Extensions list and disable the Avast On-Line Security plugin. That’s what I also did for IE 8 under Toolbars and Extensions. If you need to reinstall Avast and you use Firefox and the first time it says, “Firefox notes that another program, “Avast On-Line Security Plug In” wants to run, just say Deny or Reject or whatever the prompt says. Than, it shouldn’t show up in your browsers.”
Satch
I need to agree yet again avast is getting ridicules in it bloatware pop up crap.
All that is need is a green check no pop up we can see the check mark fine. Now this stupid popup blocks what i want to click or see .