What precisely do I disable, to stop information being sent to the cloud?

[SweetieBelle]

Staff can answer the question.

You can not honestly expect me to believe they do not know what the features are part of their own software.

Staff HAVE stated what data gets sent. What I want to know, is what features that "transmission" belongs to.

If they can not give me that information, they CAN give me the list of IP's that Avast own and use, then I can block them.

Is that REALLY so hard?

If I can not disable, sending personal information, I delete Avast! and ensure clients do not use the software. Plain and simple.

[Pondus]

they CAN give me the list of IP's that Avast own and use, then I can block them.

'
i guess that would also prevent avast from updating   

[Asyn]

they CAN give me the list of IP's that Avast own and use, then I can block them.

'
i guess that would also prevent avast from updating   

Yes, it would.

[Pondus]

Email information is also sent at various points depending on what is happening.

comment from your second reply......what mail is this...something i dont know ?




i guess you can turn it off here...see screen shot #55
http://www.softpedia.com/progScreenshots/Avast-Home-Edition-Screenshot-6474.html

[SweetieBelle]

I have specifically contacted staff and are awaiting staff input.

[Asyn]

I have specifically contacted staff and are awaiting staff input.

If you want to talk to the staff only, open a ticket: http://support.avast.com/index.php?_m=tickets&_a=submit

[igor]

Well, you don't seem to understand one basic concept about the Internet... you can't avoid transmitting your IP address. Wherever you connect, the other party knows your IP address (unless you use some kind of proxy, of course). So the IP address is always transmitted "implicitly", it's not included in any package.
Similarly, the cloud requests are queries and submits simultaneously. So you can disable File Reputation services and WebRep in the program settings - but of course it will decrease the protection (the File Reputation I mean, WebRep not really).
You might also want to disable the community membership.

As for the servers, there's no fixed list - the infrastructure keeps getting updated, of course.
For example, the usual update servers are listed in the servers.def file in the avast! installation folder - but it's hundreds of servers and they keep changing.

[SweetieBelle]

Well, you don't seem to understand one basic concept about the Internet... you can't avoid transmitting your IP address. Wherever you connect, the other party knows your IP address (unless you use some kind of proxy, of course). So the IP address is always transmitted "implicitly", it's not included in any package.

I understand perfectly well how transport layers work.

Maybe you are reading more into the literal translation of the words I have written, as opposed to the obvious.

I do not want my data being held. I asked what each feature sends, so I can make an informed decision as to whether I continue to use Avast or not.
I know I will connect to the update server and most likely have my IP logged for that, however.. I do NOT need other information being transmitted, nor do I want it being transmitted.

Why is that so hard to understand? I asked a few simple questions. That is all.

In this day and age of information theft and sale, companies should offer the option to opt out of data transmission, control what is sent or advise that their software does not allow one to limit transmitted data. No more ambiguous statements.

[bob3160]

You are apparently still not satisfied with the answer supplied by Avast.
The other option available to you is to start complaining about the same topic
to the next AV program you choose.


You may want to change the following in your settings:

Doing this means that you'll not pass along what infected your computer should you run into a brand new virus.
It also means that your not part of the solution in quickly detecting and blocking new viruses.

[igor]

You asked what to do to prevent ANYTHING to be sent into the cloud.
The answer is simple - disable all the cloud features, as the queries are simultaneously submits, plus membership in avast community. But in that case you decrease the protection by a certain extent; there is no way to achieve both.

As for what is sent in every requests, I honestly don't know the exact content of every request (for file reputation, it would be file hash and path at least, possibly some kind of origin) - and even if I did, that's something that can change at any moment via virus definition updates, so the information would be rather temporary.

[SweetieBelle]

I asked for staff clarification, several times, because I have read comments BY STAFF, which state other features, such as webrep, send info. So, I asked if there is anything else.

Sheesh, you'd think I was asking for a information on quantum theory from a pre schooler.

I just want to know, what feature sends what. If I just disable the community participation, I KNOW for a fact, based on STAFF information, that information will STILL BE SENT.'

Is this not English, is this not clear enough?

[bob3160]

The answers where also clear enough but apparently not understood or not what you wanted to hear.

[CraigB]

If you cant trust your AntiVirus provider with what little information they might have ( and if they did have? it wouldn't be identifiable to any user i dont think ) then i'd say you might as well move on and chase down the real traders of your confidential information such as your bank/finance companies, your phone service provider, local video libary, the place where you bought your car and get it serviced - all these places collect and store much more information than what avast could ever want or need from you

[igor]

I'm kinda tired of repeating the same again and again, and I won't go looking for your mysterious "staff comments" which you can't even link (or maybe I'm just blind), so this is my last attempt.
It's rather simple: community membership is for "submissions" (suspicious samples, crashes, possibly some stats).
The community membership doesn't affect the reputation services - because they are separate features that don't just submit something; they perform queries into the cloud instead (e.g. "get me a rating of a file with this hash"). Such a query, of course, submits some identification of that file (or URL) - and gets some answer back (which is then used to decide whether the file is malicious).

So again - you probably want to disable the community membership, and the reputation services (and WebRep and phishing filter, which is located elsewhere in the UI). And yes, it will decrease the protection somehow.

[SweetieBelle]

I'm kinda tired of repeating the same again and again, and I won't go looking for your mysterious "staff comments" which you can't even link (or maybe I'm just blind), so this is my last attempt.
It's rather simple: community membership is for "submissions" (suspicious samples, crashes, possibly some stats).
The community membership doesn't affect the reputation services - because they are separate features that don't just submit something; they perform queries into the cloud instead (e.g. "get me a rating of a file with this hash"). Such a query, of course, submits some identification of that file (or URL) - and gets some answer back (which is then used to decide whether the file is malicious).

So again - you probably want to disable the community membership, and the reputation services (and WebRep and phishing filter, which is located elsewhere in the UI). And yes, it will decrease the protection somehow.

May I ask if you are staff?

I need this confirmed. Part of my work involves using such information, data mining, research and many investigative methods, depending on the contract I am working.

I do NOT want data leaking out, it is something which can not be afforded.

As for "bob", take your critique elsewhere. Obviously you have not read, nor understood what is written.
Obviously, the third post was not read by some, VIK was the staff member responding to the queries.

Quote from: Pindakaas on March 08, 2012, 01:37:21 PM
- And i do want to help Avast in a way , only not by giving personal information , i dont mind to send anonymous information to Avast to make their detection ratio etc better , if i uncheck the box , what information does still get sended to Avast ?

Community membership isn't really about any personal data. The only thing that may be considered personal are the two things mentioned above -- your IP address and the installation ID of your avast (which allows us to track your history, measure the number of active installations etc).

Quote from: Pindakaas on March 08, 2012, 01:37:21 PM
- And if i uncheck the box , does WebRep still collect information on what sites i visit , and what i type in search engines ?

WebRep is a cloud-only feature. As such, it has no other way than to send this information to our servers - to get a rating info about a domain, you obviously have to send the domain name to the server.

BTW WebRep doesn't send full URLs, just domains.

I wanted to confirm, if I turned off those features, would any other data leak, but instead I have had a bunch of useless crap thrown my way largely by know it alls who cannot understand plain, concise English. Thank you to those who helped.