We have an issue of avast automatically configuring VPNs in MacOS Big Sur. The unwanted VPNs automatically connect themselves and when deleted in network preferences they come back.
How can we stop these VPNs from connecting, or more to the point creating in the first place.
See this image showing avast prompting to install the VPNs during avast install process on Big Sur:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IDojd0X9bzzMA7jK_ziPYA3IaUL_-6Gt/view?usp=sharing
Hello,
Avast Antivirus does not configure any VPN. With Catalina, Apple has introduced Network Extension framework (
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/networkextension?language=objc) for intercepting network traffic (which our Web Shield and Mail Shield need to do) instead of the old way (via Kernel Extension). This framework was AFAIK originally used on MacOS only to implement VPN, however on iOS it has also already contained the network traffic interception. This functionality was ported and expanded to MacOS in Catalina, although in an immature state. With Big Sur, Apple has discontinued kernel extensions, so we had to switch to this new technology.
Unfortunately despite the fact we are not using the VPN part of Network Extension (our system extension which uses Transparent Proxy and Dns Proxy for our Pro version), it shows as VPN in Networks in Preferences. This is probably an artifact of the fact that originally Network Extension was used for VPN; we have already reported other place where VPN term was erroneously used in messaging and Apple has fixed it, however we have not reported this yet. We will do so now, hopefully they will rename the records to better reflect what is actually being done (they have already done something similar with one other part of Network Extension functionality).
So please rest assured, unless you buy our VPN product, there is no VPN active.
Kind regards,
Ondrej Kolacek