I have just spent some time updating software/drivers etc on my desktop after being away for a while. After opening up avast and starting a program update; I was intrigued to see a message box labelled something along the lines of “please read - important”. I began to read expecting the usual “our terms have changed” blah blah etc. However… what I read was essentially a full admission from avast stating that they have been, are still, and will continue to monitor and record all my private browsing data. Not only that; they’re even as bold to openly admit they actively sell said information to third parties.
Please don’t mistake me as some ‘hater’ that is just relishing the opportunity to bad-mouth avast. After I discovered avast… I’d say, 5 or so years ago… I was very happy to have found such a reliable, user friendly and seemingly non-intrusive anti-virus. I have happily used the software since then with not a care in the world. Yet I am only now being told that for potentially 5 years, I have essentially been victim to data-theft. This coming from the very software that claims to be protector and defender. I mean sure… to my knowledge and based off what avast tells me - I haven’t been victim to a single virus in all that time. But what comfort is that? When the software claiming to protect me is essentially stealing my s**t from under my nose. All the while telling me everything is OK. You are protected!.
Understandably that revelation left me somewhat dubious. I began to look at avast with suspicious eyes. Not only did I realize that under the facade of being sleek, minimalist and user-friendly avast is actually purposefully vague. Almost in an attempt to stop you digging too deep or asking too many questions. There is very little you actually have control over. And I find avast has its grubby paws in many places it has no cause to be. To be blunt… avast downright lies. I was first told that this ‘data collection’ could be opted out of by simply going to a setting into the program settings. Turns out the setting does not exist. I was then told that I had to log into my account on avast.com and change yet another setting. Guess what… the setting does not exist. In fact, the only option I could find was to change my first and last name or, of course, throw more money at my screen.
One last thing: I find it far too coincidental that this admission comes out around the time dear old avast lost the private data of over 500,000 of its users to hackers. You know, the people they are supposed to defend us against? I imagine it was simply so they can claim that we were all aware that they were ‘gathering’ coughstealingcough sensitive information. So that if say… your credit card suddenly gets maxed out… we knew what we were getting into, right?
I’m done. Trust abused. Position of power violated. I plan to download the most thorough removal tool I can find and move on with my eyes wide-open. I urge anyone with a shred of self-respect to do the same.
@garethweston91,
You are certainly entitled to your opinion. Hopefully, you have the same respect for those of us that don’t share your opinion.
Does avast! need to monitor everything you do ??? Certainly, how else can it block the malicious stuff you run into.
You seem to have forgotten that what avast! has access too is a lot less than what the NSA can gather.
Your computer, your decision. My computer, my decision is to keep avast!
8. PRIVACY; PROCESSING OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
The Software automatically and from time to time may collect certain information, which may
include personally identifiable information, from the computer on which it is installed, including:
8.1. URLs of visited websites, together with the information on the nature of identified threats (e.g. viruses, Trojans, tracking cookies and any other forms of malware) and URLs of several
sites visited before the infection was identified to ascertain the source of the infection;
8.2. Information and files (including executable files) on your computer identified by the Software
as potentially infected, together with the information about the nature of identified threats;
8.3. Information about the sender and subject of emails identified by the Software as potentially
infected, together with the information on the nature of identified threats;
8.4. Information contained in emails reported by you as spam or as incorrectly identified as
spam by the Software;
8.5. Copies of the files identified by the Software as potentially infected or parts thereof may
be automatically sent to AVAST for further examination and analysis;
8.6. Certain information about your computer hardware, software and/or network connection;
8.7. Certain information about the installation and operation of the Software and encountered
errors or problems;
8.8. Statistical information about threats detected by the Software; and
8.9. If your version of the Software includes the Website reputation function, which provides
information on reputation of web sites as potential sources of malware, and you set the
Website reputation function to active, the Software may send AVAST the URLs of all
websites you want to visit and the results of your web searches through search engines.
And some of what they do with, it which looks pretty much like a permission for anything.
AVAST reserves the right to use the information collected by the Software anonymously in aggregation with similar information from other users of the Software for any purpose whatsoever including their use ...
@OP@garethweston91
It doesn’t strike me as the company that would steal your credit card data and charge something on it other than what you buy @AVAST lol
Besides, by that standard you set you’d have to uninstall probably 90% of what is on your computer, including Windows.
Have you found a free AV with better terms of use?
@others
I find your NSA argument pretty silly. So there is an org out there that can do much more harm? So, anyone who can do less harm is trustworthy? Twisted, flawed logic.
Nor is this a choice between AVAST or the NSA
How do you expect your AV to protect you if it doesn’t scan everything on your computer ???
I would be very disappointed if it didn’t check all the items listed.
Again, your computer, your choice. Let me know if you find an AV that doesn’t scan your stuff and still protects you.
I’d be very interested in how it’s done.
garethweston91 the only reason you have noticed this is because avast now puts this information in the installer, previously you would have needed to read the EULA and like 99% of users it was never read :
Avast are not doing anything new, it has always collected certain information and if you were to read the EULA’s of every other AV program out there they would all pretty my say the same thing in one way or another as it’s how they all use the information to perfect their usability of the program and improve the given protection of the product.
reason for reporting home is to improve detection rate… because of this http://www.av-test.org/en/statistics/malware/
because of the enormous amount of new malware it is the only way…
Twenty percent of all malware ever known first appeared in 2013; some 30 million new strains were created, that’s around 82,000 a day. According to PandaLabs’ Annual Report 2013, the amount of malware created last year has broken all records.
Yes the poster is barking up the wrong tree here. What is threatening your privacy, anonymity and also your security is a cocktail of total governmental surveillance (the so-called “stalker states”) supported by the aid of certain big corporations and your service provider (voluntarily or unvoluntarily on a mutual demand basis).
With device fingerprinting they even have satelite images of where your wifi is positioned and how far your device (laptop etc) is away from that point. Yes you are fully transparent and we are all guilty for letting this happen to us. The young generation that has not read George Orwells “1984” thinks this is the way it ought to be.
All that is happening on the Interwebs forms part of these schemes, only avast is not even a minor player there (no personalised tracking etc.).
It also states in plain language that all personal data is stripped from the information gathered.
If you’re looking for anonymity, then you never should have started using the internet or any other smart device.
We still have some security but here in the USA, privacy no longer exists. We also don’t have a right to privacy.
This is different from most other countries where the citizens have a right to privacy.
But it is your responsibility also. What you do not do on the Interwebs cannot be hold against you in the future. Your thoughts are free, your online words/actions may come to hurt you one day. If you cannot pay the time, don’t do the crime. In Holland in the 16th century social control worked as follows. As the men went out to sea the curtains were left openso everybody could check how housewifes that stayed behind behaved. The technical methods have become somewhat more refined, the outcome stays the same ;D
As already stated many times over avast isn’t spying on you, it collects certain information to improve it’s services as do all AV companies.
Concerning Government spying ( data collection ) unless you are a terrorist or are partaking in some other form of criminal activity then you are not worth their time.
But the implications for the big US tech firms are severe, even a year after the NSA revelations began.
Read: http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2014/06/19/microsoft_nsa_fallout/
link article author = Jack Clark
Had this not been the case the poster would not have started this mis-judged topic
(avast! does not deserve any nsa fallout).
Absolutely nothing, and that is why the topic should not have been started in the first place. Because it is nonsense. However these are the misinterpretations that originate from this nsa-fallout that make some posters take the blame at everything that they suspect of surveillance and privacy intrusion. The right climate was created and now the question is how to get “Alladin’s ghost back into the lamp” again, it is sheer impossible. On the other hand if not found out the situation would have continued unnoticed and we would have trusted a security backdoored and security downgraded internet, now we are aware at least it was and is one big retrieval system for the government and commerce alike. That avast has no part in this, just as the average person on the internet, is evident, but some users cannot or will not see that They see danger luring from behind every tree and shrub while their cables are being tapped into, their data hoovered into a mass surveillance data base and what have you,
