You seem to be way too paranoid. Seriously. If you don't seem to think of avast! Software as reliable company, then why you still insist on using it (not that you'll have much better luck with any other vendor)? I didn't agree with Facebook policy so i stopped using it. And the problem there is much more worrying and not that many seem to be giving much fuss about it. I mean, when users post their home addresses on Facebook and when they won't be at home it's fine. But when AV software is allegedly (not even proven!) mining user data all hell breaks loose.
Maybe you should stop for a second and think one thing. What exactly would avast! Software benefit from mining and selling the user data?
Quite honestly i can't seem to think of a single thing apart from them providing me even better protection from malware.
Because if you are that paranoid, maybe you should start thinking of how a company that made your car is tracking your through integrated GPS system. Or how a local store chain of hypermarkets is tracking your habits with all the loyalty cards they all seem to be using. or the phone makers logging your data. Or your very ISP logging ALL the stuff you visit, download, watch, listen etc. You don't seem to get annoyed by that. But you do get annoyed by an anti-malware program functions that pretty much everyone already use for quite a while.
If you want File Reputation service to operate, you simply need to collect certain data. You also have to collect certain data when you want to gather malicious domains. And so on and on.
Also think of it the other way. There are what, 180 million avast! users. Do you think anyone at avast! Software has the time to read billions of lines of data feed to their system by the CommunityIQ mechanism? That's why i'm saying you're just a number to them. A statistic.
I also think the same of Google's GMail. So they scan our mails using robots (small code that checks keywords). Do you think Google gives a crap about what i type in GMail? They just scan the keywords, maybe make translations from other languages since not all of us use english as native language. It's all a statistical data no matter how you turn it, because with such massive data input, there is just no way to individually target someone. Not sure what they'd achieve by doing that either. However i don't like the idea of having my data posted on web where anyone can read it and take advantage of it for their personal benefit. Ie someone looting my home because i typed on Facebook i'll be away on a sea cruise for 4 weeks... that's what ppl should be worried about. But they apparently aren't.
But if you don't understand all this, i suggest it's better for you to go back to the drawing board and think all this through again and learn about how technology behind avast! works. The purpose of it, it's benefits and downsides. Because apart from them unintentionally collecting your username from a file path, it's the only thing where they'll get the very maximum personal data from you. And as i remember it has been mentioned here on forums many times already.
Sure, you can turn off updates, File Reputation, Streaming Updates, CommunityIQ and so on. But what will you do in the end? All you'll get is a very crippled anti-malware product. Do you think AVG, MSE, AVIRA or any other does it any differently? Do you think you'll get any more in depth answers from them? They'll say the very same thing as we are saying it to you here. avast! is not collecting any user data intentionally. It's not selling or giving it to the 3rd party either. And if you still not agree to these terms, no one is forcing you to use the product. It's really as simple as that.
