Some might call this a philosophical issue but really it doesn’t matter if its a small company out to make a buck or a big company like CNET out to do the same if an installer contains adware or crapware the antivirus you have installed should detect it and protect you from it. Now I can understand why Avast would not detect the installer on default settings, the only security software I’ve tried that does are Nod32 and Kaspersky, the stuff the CNET installer tries to install on your system are not necessarily malicious but they are the very definition of potentially unwanted. When PUP is ticked in the realtime shields or the on demand scans the CNET installer really should be detected.
No. It should however detect the crap CNET’s web installer downloads…
Its not even doing that, In the test I ran the blekko toolbar was installed without a single prompt and the VMs homepage was changed to blekko.com. I also believe the homepage change is caused by the installer itself rather that the crapware it downloads so that alone would mark it as potentially unwanted in my view.
You will find most of us use filehippo,com and softpedia.com for downloads.
You will find everything you need at the two I mentioned. 
They don’t have the cnet.com installer crapware. ;D
Well of course most of the people in the know don’t use download.com anymore. But you have to think about the less savvy people who perhaps had their children install a free antivirus on there system and end up with a useless toolbar, a new homepage and no idea how to fix either problem. It really is the type of thing avast should be protecting people from.
+1
I would just like to add my +1 here.
I think avast should block toolbars, especially the malicious kind like babylon and also protect against changing of the homepage.
Interesting piece of behaviour I just saw while trying out Comodo Internet Security in a VM. With Comodo installed the cnet installer either skips stage 2, the stage where it tries to install crapware, or at stage 2 offers an OPT IN install of Hotspot shield. Apparently the installer is detecting the Comodo install and altering its behaviour to be less malicious.
The toolbars which you are referring to are either opt “in” or opt “out”. Since it’s up to the person installing the software I fail to see how or why avast should protect someone from their own lack of observation. During installation of avast the user has such an option for Chrome. If someone allows their children to install software they might want to re-think administrator rights on their machines.
+1
+2