I’m a new user, dumping an old AV application because it’s become too intrusive and pushy with advertising, and there’s a suspicion that it’s conflicting with another app that I use a lot. So I looked around and decided 200M users can’t be wrong… and here I am. However 10 minutes into the honeymoon period Avast pops up with a ‘browser cleanup’ and warns me about 3 browser add-ons that have a ‘very poor rating’ - is that because few others use them? There have been complaints? Users don’t understand them? We don’t know. I think I’ll keep my add-ons, but maybe sacrifice just one that I don’t use much either to see where this goes…
Then the perky little Avast window informs me “Removal of poorly rated add-ons requires you to select your default browser search provider” and gives me a window from which to choose my new search provider and home page. There’s a choice of Yahoo! or Bing!! There is, of course, no option to keep the choices I already made.
That’s behaviour I’d expect from a cheap browser hijacker, and not from a reputedly respectable AV provider.
This post is mainly just to object to manipulation attempts like this, and provide notice that if there are any other similar tricks in the pipeline I’ll be looking for another provider sooner rather than later.
I appreciate the loss of my free business isn’t exactly likely to be an immediate problem, but I have a few colleagues on whom I’m about to try the story out, and I’m sure they will have colleagues too…
The features you have mentioned could have all been removed during the install process via a custom install, through remove programs click to uninstall avast - then choose change and untick the features not wanted ( note that only the 3 main shields on the left are required ) everything else can be unticked if not needed.
You can retain the lion’s share of your protection and uninstall the extra “tools” Avast provides.
Go into your control panel, Programs and Features section, right click the Avast package and choose Change.
There you can run the Change feature of the installer to deselect any of the “tools” in the center column that you may find act less like an antivirus program and more like a hijacker.
I’ve chosen to run only one, myself. As long as the three Shields in the left column are in place, you’re well-protected in the traditional sense.
I suggest you check out what the rest of these add-0ns do before you decide to pass them by.
Some of the good ones are:
avast! Remote assistance - If you have a friend that can help you, this is the option you need.
Rescue Disk - Can boot your system when your OS fails and could help you clean up an infection.
Isn’t it clear that I did? I didn’t uncheck them all! 8)
Opening up more ways to allow someone to remotely control your computer isn’t always high on the list for people concerned about security. Plus I’m that friend who helps everyone out.
I have a robust disaster recovery strategy already, thanks. Windows provides the means to ensure I’m not stranded after a failure, including facilitating System Image backups and presenting the Windows Recovery Environment upon booting from my disc or recovery drive.