- HOW TO SEARCH WORDS ON A PAGE WITH AVAST SAFEZONE INSTALL
- HOW TO SEARCH WORDS ON A PAGE WITH AVAST SAFEZONE UPDATE
- HOW TO SEARCH WORDS ON A PAGE WITH AVAST SAFEZONE PC
So we loaded up Fiddler to see what’s really going on behind the scenes and under the hood and behind the curtain.Īs it turns out, every single URL that you visit was being sent to Avast servers - first there would be a check to /urlinfo on one of their servers, passing in a unique ID that represents you on every single request. You might remember earlier how we said that this extension is spying on you and, unlike many websites, we’re definitely not going to make some claim like that without proof of what is really going on. Note: as we were doing research for this article, they updated their extension to not include the shopping feature, but it was there since maybe around last December. The problem is that Avast snuck this component in to their browser extensions that have at least 10 million users for the Chrome version alone.
HOW TO SEARCH WORDS ON A PAGE WITH AVAST SAFEZONE INSTALL
As a standalone product, if you specifically and deliberately choose to install something like this, there’s nothing wrong with it. Here’s the thing: many people actually want shopping extensions that help them find better prices - in fact, one of the HTG staff writers recently asked me what was the best way to find better prices.
The problem lies in the SafePrice component of their Online Security extension, which adds shopping recommendations (ads) as you are browsing around the web. We were shocked to find out that some of the adware wasn’t from a third-party, but from Avast itself. Why are they adding a feature that spies on your browsing, inserts ads… and all without properly notifying you?Īvast Online Security Extension Added a “Shopping” Component No, the install process didn’t tell us about this.Ībout a week ago, we were playing around with installing a lot of nonsense from crapware sites, so we loaded up trusty Avast antivirus to see how much of the malware it would actually catch during the process. So Avast has stopped integrating the spying extension, but this is about the principle: you should be able to trust your antivirus provider. So if you are running the latest Chrome with extensions updated, you are fine.
HOW TO SEARCH WORDS ON A PAGE WITH AVAST SAFEZONE PC
The purpose of writing these types of articles isn’t to be vindictive - we just honestly want to make the world a better place for PC users.īefore we go even one step further, it’s important to note that they recently disabled the spying “shopping” feature in their browser extension. We stand by our article and our research with the exception of one very inconsequential technical detail that we have updated below. Update: Avast has posted a response to our article on their forum. They have a decent product, and while you can read this for historical purposes, you should know that many of the other antivirus vendors are doing worse things.
HOW TO SEARCH WORDS ON A PAGE WITH AVAST SAFEZONE UPDATE
Update 2: We just want to point out that this happened in the past, and Avast has cleaned up their act. These aren’t just no-name developers either: even Avast, one of the most trusted antivirus vendors was in on the game. We warned you at the beginning of the year that many of your browser extensions are spying on you, tracking what you are visiting, and even inserting ads into pages.
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