Safe Price Addition To Avast - Are You Kidding Me?

I believe Safe Price is mentioned (as a new feature) in the window that appears after the update is installed (and loaded, i.e. after reboot).

Hi. New to this forum but have been using avast for many years now.

I had been getting complaints about the price shopping bar and at first thought our systems got a nasty malware infection. I surprised to learn it was a part of the avast browser add-in…remember the one that was less invasive and mostly just sat at the top bar as a little icon until you decided to click on it…

I found the OP post interesting because it was an issue that I feel is valid and wouldn’t have thought about. Although, I feel that issue to be a valid SECONDARY concern.

I felt the need to sign up and post to this thread because I wanted to talk more about what I feel should be the PRIMARY concern. For years we trusted avast and that trust built up over time. Even with some of their big goofs: like the recent fix they seem to have done that now prevents the avast web/email shields from blocking outgoing mail ports in MS Outlook, or the one that really caused a big headache here…remember a few years ago when the avast program found a few MS files and dlls to be dangerous so it would quarantine or delete them, but we ended up realizing that they were legitimate files needed to make Windows Update work…to this day I think they never actually fixed that…but I digress…

Shame on you avast! What you did was sneaky. I’m a person that generally reads terms/conditions, etc. to try to sift out the junk…even though most people just click accept. Avast, you were NEVER authorized to add the intrusive price shopping feature…which is flawed btw. (We were looking at 4TB WD hard drives and recommendations were given for a 50% cheaper site…turns out they were for 3 TB drives…) This price feature was put on apparently through some automatic program and/or definitions update. Therefore, it was never presented to anyone to properly review, let alone understand what the revision now did…

Adding even more salt to the wound is the apparent lack of disabling the feature forever, let alone an option to completely remove (so far as I presently can tell…)

Avast, it takes a long time to build up a reputable trustworthy relationship, ESPECIALLY when you are in the business of stopping spam, viruses, trojans, malware, and anything under the heading of intrusive, system security compromising, and unsolicited.

You Avast, have just forever tarnished your reputation and have become the very thing that people wanting your program have sought to put an end to…

While I look for an alternative, (maybe I’ll give AVG another try), I must say that computer and more specifically internet speed have greatly increased and improved after removing your program.

Thank you for the time and “protection” that you’ve given us during the good years.

~Patrick

itsthexypat you can disable Safeprice through the AOS ( Browser Protection ) settings, you do have a choice to not use it.

I have Chrome, and I do not find any options to disable it ANYWHERE. I have really looked everywhere, in the browser (this is AOS settings?), and the Avast in the extentions page, there is no option to disable it, not even mentioned! The same goes for the Avast program settings and so on. AND the same goes for Uninstall feature of Avast, where you can decide what tools or components you actually want. And Safe Price is not mentioned at all. I really don’t understand what Avast is doing, frustrating indeed. Im tired of the safe price popup, very annoying if you’d ask me.

Does anyone know what to do? I guess uninstalling everything is the only option left, but I can’t do that, just bought a 2 year renewal of their service.

Help?

Oh yes, and by the way, the disable option was not on the question mark option either. From this screenshot that someone posted, it was GONE.

From the uninstall feature choose change and untick Browser Protection.

If you click on the AOS icon (wherever that is located in chrome - I don’t use chrome), that would open some AOS details about the page you are on. At the bottom of that there is a Settings option, that opens a new tab with the AOS settings - Safe Price is at the bottom of that page.

Im so appalled !! What the heck is this i said to myself!! Im infected!! But oh wait! Its my antivirus vendor who has infected my system with this crap! A vendor i trusted managed to sneak at the minimum a controversial feature and enabled it as default knowing there maybe privacy implications as well as a ton of upset users!

This is uncalled for and not acceptable in any way avast!!! Are you kidding me!!!??

Im not a free user, i paid for my copy of Avast internet security and it should NOT be suggesting products or hijacking my browser in ANY WAY!!!

Avast are you becoming the Infection!?

Stop behaving sleazy! Especially to your paying customers who have supported you!!

I signed up just to voice my opinion on this as well.

:frowning: >:( >:(
At first I thought for sure spyware had made it through onto my web browser. This is RIDICULOUS for an anti-virus program to attach itself (like a virus) to your web browser! Then to make things worse they only give you the option to disable it for 24 hours?! This is BS plain and simple. I’ve been using Avast for several years and have recommended it to many clients whom I’ve repaired and built custom computers for.

If they don’t give us a way to remove this for good I will switch back to AVG.

I don’t need my anti-virus program telling me where I should be shopping just as I don’t want my local butcher telling me which stocks I should be investing in.

Avast, stick to the game at hand and collect our data quietly in the background like everyone else does…

If you read my last post (http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=144408.msg1076569#msg1076569), they have a way to remove this or you can completely remove the AOS browser add-on.

Ditto - I’ve just joined up to complain about this as well… as I’ve just made the mistake of upgrading the Avast Program to 2014.9.0.2016

We use Firefox 28.0 and there is no way of disabling Safe Price for longer than 24 hours, the only option is to disable AOS completely - the option that was at the bottom left of the black pop-over when you clicked on the ‘?’ at the top has now gone!

I’ve been using Avast since I got fed up with Norton slugging Windows98 over a decade ago and I’ve been recommending it to everyone ever since then.

BUT recent experiences have NOT been good - first with Avast v9 crippling Windows XP at the end of 2013 and then the initial invasion of Safe Price (which I could at least turn off) , but this latest move might make me look for alternative products.

A very disappointed long term user.

If you click on the avast! Online Security icon to get the sliding panel, at the bottom of that panel is a link to Settings. Go into Settings, and you will see a list of options with checkmarks in front. The very last option (you may have to scroll to see it) is

SafePrice Receive SafePrice shopping recommendations on relevant sites.

Uncheck that line and click on “Save”.

This setting should stick until the cookie used by avast! Online Security is deleted.

Unless Safe Price is activated then I can’t get the AOS icon to do anything, there is no sliding panel.

I think I may have got it disabled now - When I restarted Firefox it brought up the Avast page you get after an Avast program update and it offered me an internal link to various settings, e.g. blocking tracking and analytics so I have turned Safe Price off in there now.

I never keep any cookies so I will see what happens at the next restart.

Safe Price needs to be easier to disable and access to the AOS settings in Firefox needs to be simpler.

People, Have a look through recent topics and note how many deal with one aspect or another of the AOS extension (particularly in Firefox) as opposed to the anti-virus proper.

AOS is a crock. Disable the extension. Problems solved. As an extension it just tries to do too much, and apart from its own bugs it seems to conflict with quite a few other popular extensions.

I’ve tried doing this (using the newest version of Mozilla Firefox) and when I click on settings it doesn’t nothing. It’s greyed out too.

Here’s a screenshot.

http://www.videogameobsession.com/photodump/temp/AvastOnlineSecurity.png

Why is there no way to do this directly from the Avast program?
They really should have asked you if you want this from the start instead of forcing it on us and leaving it up to us to figure out how to remove it.

So it seems my only options now are to ditch Avast and go back to AVG or remove Avast Online Security and take my chances (nope!).

Just so it’s clear, AOS(Avast Online Security) is just a Browser Plugin/Addon and is NOT the main core function of Avast Anti Virus.
The security issue is minimal at best and really will not put your PC at risk if Uninstalled or Disabled. :slight_smile:

So, like others I signed up just because this “feature” bothered me so much. Getting occasional popups for their other services is one thing, but popping up on my third party sites just because someone is selling something that appears to be the same product (except used or refurbished maybe) is exactly the intrusive activity from malware that I want Avast to protect me from. This is exactly the reason why I stopped using McAfee and moved to Avast!

If I want to buy from Amazon, I will buy from Amazon. I am aware that I can shop around for better deals and don’t need my virus scanner to nag me about it.

Add the feature, fine. This should have been an opt-in feature. Avast has previously been really good about releasing new features as opt-in features that pop up after an update. They have been drifting away from this recently. Please, Avast, remember why we like using your service!

I don’t know about other browsers, but in Chrome you can turn off Safe Price. In the extensions menu (chrome://extensions/) select the options for avast! Online Security. You can disable individual features.

Unfortunately I use Firefox and there is only the option to disable or enable the entire Online Security add-on.
Maybe Google stood up to their BS and told them they had to include more than just a temporary 24 hour option.

I will most likely end up switching back to AVG anyway. They don’t try to influence your shopping experience…yet.

Yeah, that blows.

SafePrice is awesome! 8) Just saved me $40! Thanks Avast for continuing to be the best of breed! I hope you make a commission off of my purchase because I love that you offer your product for free, which I have been freely enjoying for over 5 years! Avast ROCKS!!

For the rest of you moaning over sour grapes that you can’t compete, like it or lump it…that’s business!
For those of you who don’t know how to remove a browser plug-in, are you from the past? :slight_smile:

Yes, so I uninstalled avast and then re-install carefully to uncheck safe price… >:(