Avast WEBforum
Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: RejZoR on August 02, 2019, 07:29:25 AM
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So it finally happened. The thing we were saying is questionable practice from the beginning has finally come to a point where it unnecessarily exposed the user.
Some streamer had his IP broadcasted to all the viewers because avast!'s popup displaying his IP jumped into the stream, being visible to everyone on it at that moment. While IP itself is a semi public thing, it's only public to servers you're connecting to. Having it public just like that can potentially be abused which is just not cool and being done by a software that was suppose to keep you safer makes it even worse.
LINK TO ORIGINAL POST:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CrappyDesign/comments/cku7qp/thanks_for_sharing_my_ip_with_the_world_while
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All those 'privacy issue' popups are dumb.
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I've escalated this on the developer channel as this is unacceptable imo.
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I have never liked them, they are dumb not smart.
The only reason they are there is because Avast is within my system and everything is filtered through it. So it should know my bloody IP, it would be a totally different matter if it was able to do this outside of my system, where it could be more serious and considered hacking.
Avast has a privileged position being installed on my system and this is just abusing that position trying to give me a headache so it can sell me an aspirin. It just gives the user the feeling that Avast is looking over their shoulder at everything I/we do as a sales opportunity.
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Years ago Avast didn't popup scare tactics that I remember with the latest ads, its getting to the point of way over the top in my opinion---From this one your ip address is visible, to the webcam might be spying on you, and hundreds of others that popup occasionally, to Notification of Avast Premium for 6 months or whatever the darn notification is
Avast has had the privilege of being installed since 2006 on household systems, but only a matter of time it will get to a point where it's way too much, and force even longtime users to possibly give up on using it.
Probably why a lot of other tech forums when i posted on PC issues before in the past, that was probably unrelated to Avast--like my missing Temporary internet files location that I posted about a bit here and another forum, first thing in the reply was, what Antivirus you running, I replied Avast 19.5 at the time, and next reply was to dump Avast, and just use Defender. ((I didn't dump Avast yet, fixed that issue with a clean windows 10 install in the end))
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If it really has to do this, it should just say "your IP is exposed" and not actually show it. Normies don't know the IP address anyway so it doesn't matter whether you say the real one, say none or just make something up.
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If it really has to do this, it should just say "your IP is exposed" and not actually show it. Normies don't know the IP address anyway so it doesn't matter whether you say the real one, say none or just make something up.
Nothing should be shown.
Making stuff up only decreases Credibility.
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If it really has to do this, it should just say "your IP is exposed" and not actually show it. Normies don't know the IP address anyway so it doesn't matter whether you say the real one, say none or just make something up.
Nothing should be shown.
Making stuff up only decreases Credibility.
+1
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If it really has to do this, it should just say "your IP is exposed" and not actually show it. Normies don't know the IP address anyway so it doesn't matter whether you say the real one, say none or just make something up.
Nothing should be shown.
Making stuff up only decreases Credibility.
Well, we've argued their marketing methods before and nothing has changed. Coz they just don't care apparently. Changing display of IP to just saying it is exposed would be a start.
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If it really has to do this, it should just say "your IP is exposed" and not actually show it. Normies don't know the IP address anyway so it doesn't matter whether you say the real one, say none or just make something up.
Nothing should be shown.
Making stuff up only decreases Credibility.
Well, we've argued their marketing methods before and nothing has changed. Coz they just don't care apparently. Changing display of IP to just saying it is exposed would be a start.
That's true, nothing has changed.
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Who knows if anything will change at this point, it's been the same ad for a while now with showing the IP addy at times. Whats it gonna take for them to change the ad to just say Your IP Address is exposed, without showing the actual IP, sure most users probably don't even know there IP,
But imagine if someones doing a presentation, or on a video call with skype and suddenly that popup comes up showing the IP
I know developers wanna make money by having people purchase parts of Avast, or upgrade to Premium version, but where to draw the line with the annoying popups, bad enough notifications come in for 6 month Premium upgrade or whatever the heck it is, I just dismiss it usually
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marketing methods will not change as long as revenue goes up, so the annoying marketing popups will continue
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.....our goal is to become the world’s no. 1 security company in terms of revenue,” added Steckler.
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https://press.avast.com/record-revenue-puts-avast-in-second-among-security-industry-leaders
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marketing methods will not change as long as revenue goes up, so the annoying marketing popups will continue
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.....our goal is to become the world’s no. 1 security company in terms of revenue,” added Steckler.
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https://press.avast.com/record-revenue-puts-avast-in-second-among-security-industry-leaders (https://press.avast.com/record-revenue-puts-avast-in-second-among-security-industry-leaders)
Vince may not be the boss any more but I'm sure the stockholders expect nothing less from
Mr Vlcek.
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Sometimes the popup shows your location. That could be just as dangerous. There's a lot of weirdos out there.
Or in my case it shows me what it thinks is my location, or IP. To scare me into their VPN service. Well, I'm already behind a VPN. A much more capable one even. With actual proven credibility in court. So none of those 'threats' are even remotely correct or problematic. Again; the popups are just dumb.
It can be difficult for a lay person to distinguish between real alerts and these scare tactics. It is a hassle to teach familiy members to ignore these, without them ignoring every legit alert to. So I get calls. Like yesterday when the main screen popped up at boot. Including the white part on the bottom with the 'privacy issues'. I got called. Had to figure out what was going on. Then I turned on my own PC and got the same screen. Sigh.
This difficulty is of course exactly why Avast does this. Even if just 1% bites, that is a win. However it is precisely this annoying behavior that leads me to advise everybody I know not to encourage it by buying an Avast product. A catch 22. The more pushing, the more I advise against spending money at Avast. Sadly, other free AV clients have also become more and more pushy. So i guess suffering the annoyances is the new normal.
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So i guess suffering the annoyances is the new normal.
No it is not.
There is BitDefender free , Kaspersky Free no advertising and more potent than Avast!
So, why suffer for nothing????
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I don't know about bitdefender but Kaspersky is maybe not an option. The Dutch government is phasing it out over security concerns. So perhaps that should be a red flag for consumers.
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I don't know about bitdefender but Kaspersky is maybe not an option. The Dutch government is phasing it out over security concerns. So perhaps that should be a red flag for consumers.
There is also Avira free / Panda Dome free / Sophos home free / Windows defender
Sophos and Defender are totally marketing popup free
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AVIRA is just pure garbage. Maybe its detection is good, but everything else from interface to design and how friendly it is to user is just absolutely horrid. Stupid launcher installs bunch of crap and you have to uninstall it one by one with slow uninstallers. Jesus christ, if this is German design and engineering I want whatever they are smoking.
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AVIRA is just pure garbage. Maybe its detection is good, but everything else from interface to design and how friendly it is to user is just absolutely horrid. Stupid launcher installs bunch of crap and you have to uninstall it one by one with slow uninstallers. Jesus christ, if this is German design and engineering I want whatever they are smoking.
Pondus doesn't use Avast so his help replies come from his memory and the Avast support website, etc.
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I've had the IP address pop-up quite a few times. Interestingly today I had a new Avast pop-up saying my connection isn't encrypted even though I'm using NordVPN. I understand Avast needs to promote its products but it should at least be accurate with what it's saying.
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What is also popular at the moment is a pop-up inside your mail-client when avast thinks your password is too weak for your mail client account. In such a case they will serve up a password generator to create a more solid one. I experienced this inside avast secure browser reading my ISP's mail client's mail.
Anyways it is better then to check your mail addresses against online repositories like https://haveibeenpwned.com
It is like giving your address to a tombola service, later you are spam-mailed out of your socks.
And who can tell haveibeenpwned could not go commercial one day with all that data they sit on there?
But no-one said the Interwebz isn't a dangerous place to be on. :(
Well Kaspersky's fate was sealed when it told officials in the USA about data leaks by a worker of an American subcontractor.
The violator is inside the slammer now, but the "fourteen eyes" do not trust Kaspersky Lab any longer with that knowledge.
How unfortunate, good deeds can be punished, so Kaspersky Lab has lost the trust the USA government and those of allied nations.
polonus
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" There is BitDefender free , Kaspersky Free no advertising and more potent than Avast! "
gadzooks! bitdefender and kaspersky both offer free versions? where was i when this happened? thought i checked 1½-2 years ago. :o thanks for the back-slap, claudiubotezatu … gonna' consider my options over the weekend. regards.
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Giving Windows Defender a try on two systems, (Gaming ones so far) while I like the no ad aspect, and silence it provides, just not 100 percent sure on the protection aspect, despite it scored great this time in Av-Test latest results.
Though did use Avast for a long long time, still using it on 3rd Desktop so far, as that machine we usually do our online shopping, banking, bill paying, so uneasy to try that one on Defender as yet, plus it's older Desktop with Windows 10 still, but processor speed and memory isn't as much as the gaming system, (16gb on this one) 8gb on 3rd Desktop
If i'm making a mistake switching so soon after this information came out, then oopsy lol, always can disable defender aspects and reinstall Avast Free if need be
Unless Defender isn't good to use, though recommended by a lot of other sites lol
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The last time I tried Panda it was a cloud-based scanner. So nope, no thanks to that bs. I want my AV to be local and not connect to the internet without my consent. I don't feel like sending hashes or whatever of every file on my machine to some server. Nope. No way.
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Hallo Rundvleeskroket,
And what about sending your data to some av-solution's adserver?
How would they give you a specific pop-up then? HTTPS-scanning you.
Internal workings of the av-solution, like it always was?
Marketing comes balanced from adserver and webserver,
and often clouddriven. Better when it is all done by in-house developers.
Big IT too surveillance minded data-grabbers,
groetjes,
polonus
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The last time I tried Panda it was a cloud-based scanner. So nope, no thanks to that bs. I want my AV to be local and not connect to the internet without my consent. I don't feel like sending hashes or whatever of every file on my machine to some server. Nope. No way.
So your avast has to ask premission evry time it want to update? stream update / VPS update / program update
All AV does this today and it is not evry file, lots of tech stuff has changed since Panda was the first cloud based AV 10years ago
posted 2016
CyberCapture: Protection against zero-second attacks
https://blog.avast.com/cybercapture-protection-against-zero-second-attacks
An in-depth look at the technology behind CyberCapture
https://blog.avast.com/an-in-depth-look-at-the-technology-behind-cybercapture
Posted 2009
Arguments against cloud-based antivirus
https://www.pandasecurity.com/mediacenter/malware/arguments-against-cloud-based-antivirus/
The Insides of Panda Cloud Antivirus
https://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Insides-of-Panda-Cloud-Antivirus-111793.shtml
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We have a topic for discussing Security programs other than Avast and it's not here.
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=88.0 (https://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=88.0)
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So your avast has to ask premission evry time it want to update? stream update / VPS update / program update
That is not what I said. I give consent to do certain things. Like downloading definition files and stream updates. And then comparing my local files to that local set of definitions. Nothing more should happen. And I don't consent to more than that.
Major program updates are announced as being available. I then manually confirm the update when it suits me. Many times when an emercengy update happens I manually instruct my firewall to allow it. Because it is an unknown executable trying to connect to outside, so my firewall will block it and alert me.
I don't use HTTPS-scanning.
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So your avast has to ask premission evry time it want to update? stream update / VPS update / program update
That is not what I said. I give consent to do certain things. Like downloading definition files and updating the main application. And then comparing my local files to that local set of definitions. Nothing more should happen. And I don't consent to more than that.
I don't use HTTPS-scanning.
Well you could lose a lot of functionality, that may require cloud checking. Hardened Mode, Reputation Services, CyberCapture and possibly Behaviour mode. I guess you would have to disable those.
Your acceptance of the Avast EULA would allow for more than you think "Nothing more should happen. And I don't consent to more than that." should happen.
There comes a time when you have disabled more than you enable in your AV, is it time to look for a solution that better suits your requirements.
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Hardened Mode, Reputation Services, CyberCapture and possibly Behaviour mode. I guess you would have to disable those.
There comes a time when you have disabled more than you enable in your AV, is it time to look for a solution that better suits your requirements.
All those things are disabled. Always have been. I only use three Core Shields. Not behaviour shield. That is it.
I use what I need. The rest gets disabled. And blocked and/or forcibly removed if need be. I am in control. Period.
About the EULA: speaking in general, not just the Avast EULA; agreeing to a EULA does not mean everything in it is allowed or legal. A company can put in its UELA that I have to give up my firstborn. Doesn't make it enforceable or legally valid. Local laws supersede EULA's. A EULA that contains illegal components just means those components are null and void. Something to think about.
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Its entirely your decision, if you have disabled all of those functions there is likely to be very little cloud requirement, but there may be.
So it is down to your choice, live with it or find some other AV solution that suits your requirements and limitations. Very good luck with that.
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This is how I've used Avast since before they tacked on most of those mentioned 'features'. Every so often I check up on what other known AV companies are doing. All the testing is a hassle though. Sadly they all more or less seem to trend towards the cloud. Like everything else.
The thing is that I can't just switch. That takes a lot of planning and effort. Because I manage machines for family and friends. And this is only doable by keeping a similar set of programs on all of the machines. Not a different AV on each one. So all the people, most of whom are not very computer savvy, would have to relearn the AV and its messages. So yeah, not something done lightly.
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This is how I've used Avast since before they tacked on most of those mentioned 'features'. Every so often I check up on what other known AV companies are doing. All the testing is a hassle though. Sadly they all more or less seem to trend towards the cloud. Like everything else.
The thing is that I can't just switch. That takes a lot of planning and effort. Because I manage machines for family and friends. And this is only doable by keeping a similar set of programs on all of the machines. Not a different AV on each one. So all the people, most of whom are not very computer savvy, would have to relearn the AV and its messages. So yeah, not something done lightly.
If you turn off evrything and only want basic AV it seems Windows defender is the thing for you?
hmm ... yea it also has cloud services
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Pretty basic, if you restrict your AV, you also restrict it's ability to protect you.
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I've never restricted the AV I have installed on my systems and have been able to perform anything I've wanted.
I have associates that I've worked with for years who mess with setting and disable/restrict stuff and inevitably get some kind of virus/crap on their systems.
I, on the other hand, have not. ;)
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I enable the parts I want and not the rest. It really is that simple. Do you use every feature of every program you have? No, of course not. Nobody does.
I choose the level of protection I feel I need, and I cut out the overprotective and invasive bloat. That suits me just fine. 'Scary' anecdotes won't change that.
Avast used to be a fairly basic, lightweight, and unobtrusive AV. I liked that. Now that it adds all sorts of extra stuff, a lot of which isn't even AV, I just politely decline the offers to 'help' and keep to the basics. When Avast insists, I put my foot down. I always win ;)
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I've always used the free version and all the protection that's free is active.
Since I always use a custom install, I omit those parts that aren't free and I'm able to bypass.
https://youtu.be/NiK6_HKKj0k (https://youtu.be/NiK6_HKKj0k)
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Anyone remembers that funny moment from years ago when avast! updated during some wrestling fight? Well, we've come from that funny moment to this which is totally unfunny. The fact no one from avast! dropped by to comment is also worrying.
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Anyone remembers that funny moment from years ago when avast! updated during some wrestling fight? Well, we've come from that funny moment to this which is totally unfunny. The fact no one from avast! dropped by to comment is also worrying.
Hi pal, see: https://avast-software.slack.com/archives/C3UBVRDUG/p1564753443029500
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Anyone remembers that funny moment from years ago when avast! updated during some wrestling fight? Well, we've come from that funny moment to this which is totally unfunny. The fact no one from avast! dropped by to comment is also worrying.
Yes I remember it well, hilarious, but these type of scare-mongering ads are not in the least funny.
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Anyone remembers that funny moment from years ago when avast! updated during some wrestling fight? Well, we've come from that funny moment to this which is totally unfunny. The fact no one from avast! dropped by to comment is also worrying.
Yes I remember it well, hilarious, but these type of scare-mongering ads are not in the least funny.
I didn't put this together 2 years ago because I was happy with all these ads and sales pitches.
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=204972.msg1405903#msg1405903 (https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=204972.msg1405903#msg1405903)
Wish it had helped. :(