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Avast Free - Spying & Selling Your Data :(

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Yeah and when they get caught they get a slap on the wrist, so they continue to do it. lol Not sure what your point is. Nothing even happened to Civilization 6 company when they got caught red handed stealing peoples data. lol Nothing will happen to Avast either.

Sorry?

It took one stab at DDG to figure this out. Note the 50M Google fine among them. And a few others. Or the 183M for British Airways. I don't know about you, but those aren't the sort of fines you happily put aside as irrelevant. Although in the case of Google perhaps they do. But it still is a warning sign - do not trespass. And the result has actually been changes in policy, too, look at how Google now offers you a dashboard with all sorts of levers to remove tracking and clear advertising IDs.

You really oughta stop the trigger happy uninformed statements... or at least verify them.

Rome wasn't built overnight and its the US that is really the big bad guy here, with its total lack of regulation or even the completely absent public discussion on data ownership. Instead, the US is happy to axe net neutrality to please their already fat ISPs and other domestic companies. Commerce over everything, screw social cohesion and all other things that make us who we are.

Its about time you guys started a GDPR initiative too, really. It will increase its weight ten-fold and make it too big to ignore. Because that is the real cause these tech companies get away with everything: they operate internationally and countries can only change domestic policy.
 
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Space Lynx

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Sorry?

It took one stab at DDG to figure this out. Note the 50M Google fine among them.

Not sure what your point is, 50m fine on a 1 trillion valued company is nothing, slap on the wrist as I stated before... really not even a slap, little annoying fly that lands on your hand and you swat away at times, lol.
 
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Not sure what your point is, 50m fine on a 1 trillion valued company is nothing, slap on the wrist as I stated before... really not even a slap, little annoying fly that lands on your hand and you swat away at times, lol.

Do take the time to consider the rest of the post. The point is pretty clear, I think, unless you don't want to read it.
 

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Do take the time to consider the rest of the post. The point is pretty clear, I think, unless you don't want to read it.


170 million here, a long long time after the first 50m fine. lol

Probably more to come in future years, its just a slap, not a warning sign like you seem to claim.

and I agree with you America needs its own form of GDPR. but congress is corrupt and bribed and has been since the 1970's then it was sugar and corn syrup companies, now its big telecom. so eh good luck ever fixing it.
 
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^ Well, that's kind like asking why do people get vaccines -- because they don't want to get infected with some funky-ass, deadly disease.
Good analogy but also, people use these programs (and get, or should get vaccines) so they don't become carriers and spread these viruses and diseases to others. And that leads me to this:
Sorry, I was going to say something smartarse about how linux doesn't have to worry about virii ect
Its a good thing you didn't say anything :rolleyes: because it would be naive and simply incorrect to suggest Linux users don't have to worry about malware infestations. While there have been no known widespread, pandemic-type infections like those seen with Windows, Linux malware is definitely out there. And attacks on Linux servers and systems, which are then used to attack other Linux and Windows systems, are growing every day.

North Korea state-backed hackers, the Lazarus Group, target Linux with new Remote Access Trojan (RAT) Malware. So yeah, good thing you didn't mention that because you would look pretty silly! ;)
 
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I find it ironic that AV suites with "built-in" firewalls do not block themselves from contacting the Home Office. AVG, when it first came out, was the best AV software around, it was small and very efficient. When it started adding features is when it completely changed and became bloatware like 90% of the AV software, all of which collect varying amounts of data, none of which is 100% directly related to the functionality of installed purpose.

I can say with confidence that no one should put 100% faith and trust into any single piece of protection software, unless you wrote it yourself.
 
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When it started adding features is when it completely changed and became bloatware like 90% of the AV software
This is a common pattern. When ZoneAlarm firewall first came out way back in early XP days, it was, by far, the best FW around. They added anti-spyware, and more extra features nobody asked for that made it a bloated ad campaign to buy more CheckPoint products. That's exactly why I dumped ZoneAlarm and AVG too.

Once again, its the marketing weenies. "Oh look! We have a great product! Let's bog it down with more features and suffocate it to death!" :rolleyes:

I can say with confidence that no one should put 100% faith and trust into any single piece of protection software, unless you wrote it yourself.
Even if I was a great programmer and true security expert, I think it would be pretty arrogant, and a mistake, to trust even my own single piece of protection.
 
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An on-demand scanner like HitmanPro is a good alternative to a real-time traditional AV.
Just schedule a daily scan and you also benefit from context menu scan.
 
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If u r a regular home user then a good adblock, a security dns something like quad9 or adguard and some common sense is more than enuf. I haven't use antivirus since 2014 and I'm fine, they r nothing but performance eater of ur PC. Just know ur internet and u will be fine.
 

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If u r a regular home user then a good adblock, a security dns something like quad9 or adguard and some common sense is more than enuf. I haven't use antivirus since 2014 and I'm fine, they r nothing but performance eater of ur PC. Just know ur internet and u will be fine.

Tell that to all the people I hear from that got hit with ransomware that came through their email. An adblock, secure DNS is not going to stop these. And just saying "good common sense" doesn't help either, because what is common sense to us isn't common sense to a lot of people. I mean, i can spot a scam email from a mile away, but I get calls from people all the time that fall for them.
 
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Tell that to all the people I hear from that got hit with ransomware that came through their email. An adblock, secure DNS is not going to stop these. And just saying "good common sense" doesn't help either, because what is common sense to use isn't common sense to a lot of people. I mean, i can spot a scam email from a mile away, but I get call from people all the time that fall for them.
common sense based what we know against the mental database of what we're taught vs what we're told is right that really isnt...I digress.
 
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If u r a regular home user then a good adblock, a security dns something like quad9 or adguard and some common sense is more than enuf. I haven't use antivirus since 2014 and I'm fine, they r nothing but performance eater of ur PC. Just know ur internet and u will be fine.
Not even. This tactic depends on simple good luck. And that always - eventually - runs out.
An on-demand scanner like HitmanPro is a good alternative to a real-time traditional AV.
Just schedule a daily scan and you also benefit from context menu scan.
I don't agree. There's no real good alternative to a decent real-time scanner that is constantly looking for suspicious behavior in memory, and constantly scanning all incoming data (including downloads, attachments, and temp internet files). On-demand scanners are great for 2nd opinions after-the-fact, but not as real-time alternatives.
Or unless it proves to have been reliable consistently for more than a decade.
LOL Not even here either. First, 10 years is just an arbitrary number. Second, operating systems are constantly changing which introduces the potential for new vulnerabilities. Third, badguys are constantly learning and becoming more and more sophisticated and introducing new malicious code every day. Forth, not even the best, most conscientious good guys are infallible nor do they remain at the top of their game forever - not to mention personnel and even companies come and go and/or change.

Certainly, a company that has consistently given you good service for a long time instills confidence it will continue to do so. But that is no guarantee they will won't fail to protect you tomorrow.
 
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I am literally trying super hard to get a virus today. I know we have test virus I could dload on purpose but I am trying to get one off of surfing.

It just isn't happening.

As usual the worst I am seeing requires nothing more than control, alt, delete, kill it......or just crash my machine and reboot.
 
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No, they weren't. The quality of both AVG and Avast has been consistently unreliable year to year for more than a decade. Your example is not valid.

Except they were good for a decade before they were bad for decade.
 
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No, they weren't. The quality of both AVG and Avast has been consistently unreliable year to year for more than a decade. Your example is not valid.
Except they were good for a decade before they were bad for decade.
This.^

AVG been around since win95? damn I forget. I didnt start vetting it until win98 at that time it only used around 44mb of system resources. When it was strictly anti-virus protection.
 
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No, they weren't. The quality of both AVG and Avast has been consistently unreliable year to year for more than a decade. Your example is not valid.

Calling his no proof claim invalid while also making a no proof claim is also invalid.
 
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Calling his no proof claim invalid while also making a no proof claim is also invalid.
Except that the information can be found easily, if one goes to look... Are you saying that you don't know where to look?

AVG been around since win95? damn I forget. I didnt start vetting it until win98 at that time it only used around 44mb of system resources. When it was strictly anti-virus protection.
That is way too long ago for there to be reliable records, but IIRC, back then AVG was one of the better A/V programs. According to Wikipedia, Grisoft started in 1992 in Europe and branched out in the late 90's, which sounds about right.
 
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Except that the information can be found easily, if one goes to look... Are you saying that you don't know where to look?

If this is your response to what I said then you largely missed the point. People on these forums are constantly calling others out for making claims with no proof to back them up. How about we all start putting our money where our mouth is?

More to the point AV Comparatives and AV Test Institute tend to disagree with the reliability over the last 5 or so years.
 
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If this is your response to what I said then you largely missed the point. People on these forums are constantly calling others out for making claims with no proof to back them up. How about we all start putting our money where our mouth is?

You're talking to empty air on this one. Might as well move on.
 

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Back in topic folks.
 
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