The Firefox web browser recently updated its UI to remove the status bar at the bottom. Unfortunately, some of the plugins I use depend on running in the status bar area. So I installed “The Addon Bar (Restored)” browser plugin, to put the status bar back.
This plugin has a 5-star rating with almost 200 reviews, and no hint of malware whatsoever. Nevertheless, Avast throws up a really annoying pop-up several times a day, inviting me to remove this browser plugin due to its “bad reputation”. Really? Hey Avast, THEY’RE not the ones putting really sleazy “Be Invisible!” and “The NSA Is Spying On You!” spam pop-ups on my desktop all day!
Anyway, the labeling of this plugin as malware is clearly a mistake in the Avast database. However, I haven’t found a way to “approve” or “whitelist” the plugin, so that Avast will stop nagging me to uninstall it all day. This is extremely annoying, and if I can’t find some workaround I’ll just uninstall Avast instead. Is there some way to prevent warnings about browser plugins, especially for known false positives? Thanks!
Avast does not indicate that the browser plugin is “infected” with any particular named item. The pop-up simply says that the following browser plugin(s) have a bad reputation, lists “The Addon Bar (Restored)” as the only item in the list, and then has a remove button at the bottom.
What difference would a screen shot make of the pop up? It matters what it says. I also have a problem with a browser plugin called “timeline remove” for facebook. No doubt it was a facebook employee who reported it as having a bad reputation. Its the best plugin I have. All it does is allow me to be able to read profile pages again since they started making all of their unnecessary and hard to navigate changes.
To original poster: If you go to uninstall programs and click on Avast then uninstall - the next screen shown will give options where you can choose change, on the change screen untick Browser Cleanup and any other feature not wanted.
To the OP (stevedperkins) and jbrjahs: you can stop Avast from checking for toolbars with bad reputations by unchecking the relevant box in the Browser Cleanup section (<Tools option < Avast UI). See the image below.
I also use the timeline remove plugin and have been harassed by Avast to remove it. It’s excellent to inform users of a ‘bad reputation’ but an explanation should also be provided. Plus, as suggested by the OP, there should be an option to allow/ignore the toolbar/plugin in question.
I was going to uninstall Avast until I found the check box. But that’s really a work around, in my opinion. If Avast is going to keep this Browser cleanup option, it should improve the way it communicates the information to endusers and provide options for them to dismiss/turnoff these warnings. (Which also should be in yellow, not red, btw.)
What is worse: AVAST BROWSER “CLEANER” CHANGES YOUR SEARCH ENGINE AND HOME PAGE. If you select to remove a suspicious browser plug-in or addon, Avast will change you main search engine to Bing and your home page, too. This is really regrettably sneaky way to take advantage of users. I suppose Avast gets a payment for each search engine change from Microsoft. If I don’t hear from the OP, I’ll post elsewhere.
