Avast anti-virus sells 435m customer data, including porn search history
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- This topic has 53 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 1 year, 2 months ago by
Anonymous.
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January 28, 2020 at 8:19 pm #37492
Anonymous
Guest>You DO have antivirus, right anon? Common sense [current year] just isn’t enough.
Leaked documents, data, contracts show how hugely popular antivirus Avast now harvests internet browsing data and sells it for millions of dollars. Clients included Home Depot, Google, Microsoft. Documents show a product called “All Clicks Feed”
>As we’ve learned time and time again, “free” things on the internet are almost never truly free. If you’re not paying with money, you’re probably paying with your data. That’s the case with the free antivirus products from Avast, which harvest browsing history for sale to major corporations. Despite claims that its data is fully anonymized, an investigation by our sister site PCMag and Motherboard shows how easy it is to unmask individual users.
>Avast, which offers antivirus products under its own brand as well as AVG, has traditionally gotten high marks for its malware blocking prowess. When setting up the company’s free AV suite, users are asked to opt into data collection. Many do so after being assured all the data is anonymized and aggregated to protect their identities. However, Avast is collecting much more granular data than anyone expected, and that puts your privacy at risk.
>Avast markets user data through its Jumpshot subsidiary, which has relationships with firms like Google, Pepsi, Microsoft, and Home Depot. PCMag and Motherboard managed to gain access to internal documents and a sample of data from Jumpshot, and they found Avast is tracking user clicks down to the second.
>That doesn’t tell you anything about the person behind the clicks — unless you’re Amazon. With access to Amazon data, you could simply look for users who executed the same click or series of clicks, and now you have a name associated with the device ID. Suddenly, Avast’s data contains a full record of that user’s internet usage. Other companies can do the same by matching anonymized clicks in Avast data with their own records.
>Avast recently removed the user tracking features from its Chrome extensions, but the standalone desktop programs continue to collect every click. For this reason, PCMag no longer recommends Avast Antivirus.
Additional sources:
https://www.cnet.com/news/antivirus-firm-avast-is-reportedly-selling-users-web-browsing-data/
https://www.engadget.com/2020/01/27/avast-jumpshot-selling-user-data/
https://archive.fo/o2fJL (VICE, archived cuz they’re cancer) -
January 28, 2020 at 8:22 pm #37495
Anonymous
Guestit’s written in the TOS, how can people be surprised with this?
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January 28, 2020 at 10:24 pm #37538
Anonymous
GuestWhy is this kind of data worth anything?
Looks like mobile users data, still should be worth nothing.Most users shouldn’t care if it not personalized
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January 28, 2020 at 10:50 pm #37540
Anonymous
Guest>Looks like mobile users data, still should be worth nothing.
Just because you lack the knowledge to use it doesn’t mean it won’t make millions for those who have the knowledge.
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January 28, 2020 at 8:22 pm #37496
Anonymous
Guest>install plugin which decrypt network traffic and sends it to somewehere
stupidity has no limits -
January 28, 2020 at 8:23 pm #37497
Anonymous
Guestif anyone has any data on a bunch of people, they are selling it
it’s over -
January 28, 2020 at 8:23 pm #37498
Anonymous
GuestWhat is a good alternative and what does g do for security?
Paid and free-
January 28, 2020 at 8:26 pm #37503
Anonymous
Guestdon’t download and run garbage off of dodgy websites. don’t open file attachments sent via e-mail from strangers,keep browser & os up to date..etc.etc.. common sense stuff that costs $0.
Also F-Secure Safe along with browser extensions for Firefox such as uBlock origin and Disconnect.
I also use Never remember history setting on it to nuke whatever cookies there might be every time I close the browser, but that’s more for the increased productivity for there being an extra step to log in to whatever social media or site I might use.
Using “free” virus protection sounds really risky considering the root access these applications have on whatever system they’re installed on. I personally trust F-Secure due to it being Finnish and they’ve actively fought for privacy during the past few years. Mikko Hyppönen has a lot of great talks about privacy and malware on the web.
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January 28, 2020 at 8:29 pm #37504
Anonymous
GuestI do not open random binaries. People who say they use linux so they do not need antivirus usually do. Using linux doesn’t make you invincible. It doesn’t matter at all which OS you use from AV perspective if you open random binaries.
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January 28, 2020 at 8:33 pm #37506
Anonymous
Guestyou hardly can do any harm to the system without root privileges and unlike on windows we don’t just have a popup saying that you need admin rights that everyone just ignores and clicks yes, it asks you for the root password. That alone makes some people think twice before continuing. Second, what kind of viruses are you talking about ? I’m sure you can download some epic troll script that will delete some files or whatever, but the more (if not the only) available viruses for windows that spy on you or run some Bitcoin miner will not work on linux, nobody makes them
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January 28, 2020 at 8:23 pm #37500
Anonymous
GuestSome of us have families and as we all know kids and women are retarded.
What are some wholesome security solutions that don’t rely on “common sense”
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January 28, 2020 at 10:24 pm #37539
Anonymous
GuestYou can’t protect retards from themselves. They’ll figure out some way to gently caress shit up, even if you come up with some “fool proof” solution and tell them to upload even remotely sketchy programs to virustotal before running. Just put MSE (because it’s free and they’re already using MS spyware anyway) on their shit and get ready for them to call you to fix their gently caressups later. If you really insist on having some software running in the background, get malwarebytes.
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January 29, 2020 at 10:16 am #37567
Anonymous
GuestUse something like VirtualBox, make an image of VM with fresh install of windows. Then clone that VM image into a new VM and have them use that, tell them to save any documents to a cloud drive like dropbox. Every week you delete that VM and clone a new one from that image. So basically you wipe their shit each week. If they have to keep installing certain software they need after each wipe (like Word or something), add that software yourself to that fresh install image, so they don;’t have to do that after each wipe.
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January 28, 2020 at 8:30 pm #37505
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January 28, 2020 at 8:34 pm #37507
Anonymous
GuestTheir privacy policy makes it quite obvious that they spy on you but retards still continue to use it
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January 28, 2020 at 11:41 pm #37544
Anonymous
Guestso which anti-virus can you use in 2020?
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January 29, 2020 at 3:24 am #37552
Anonymous
Guestublock origin and not running unknown apps or links, I have only simplewall + UAC on password
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January 29, 2020 at 6:13 am #37557
Anonymous
GuestGentoo
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January 30, 2020 at 5:04 am #37574
Anonymous
GuestYou can get infected just as easily (if not easier) on linux than on windows. There’s a reason software like ClamAV exists. Enjoy your custom compiled kernel until someone sends you a nice binary with trojan and you open it like a moron.
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January 28, 2020 at 8:34 pm #37508
Anonymous
Guest>Avast
lol why do people keep using that crappy anti-virus software-
January 28, 2020 at 8:35 pm #37509
Anonymous
GuestIt’s better than AVG, supports Windows XP, and is free.
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January 28, 2020 at 8:41 pm #37515
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January 28, 2020 at 8:43 pm #37519
Anonymous
GuestWhilst I don’t know the intent of the poster you replied to, he is factually correct, and I’ll still be using avast on windows systems. Everyone sells data, and there are currently no better alternatives.
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January 29, 2020 at 6:14 am #37558
Anonymous
GuestWindows defender
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January 28, 2020 at 8:35 pm #37510
Anonymous
GuestBecause they think they are smarter than other people who don’t use antivirus whatsoever.
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January 28, 2020 at 8:37 pm #37511
Anonymous
Guest>It’s better than AVG
Who do you think owns AVG?
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January 28, 2020 at 8:38 pm #37512
Anonymous
GuestWhat will Pepsi and Home Depot use my porn history for? It’s not like google ads or television or radio can use my fetish interests without getting censored all to hell.
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January 28, 2020 at 8:40 pm #37514
Anonymous
GuestIt was in the gently caressing EULA. In a free antivirus. Of course you entitled cucks.
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January 28, 2020 at 8:43 pm #37518
Anonymous
GuestGlad I switched from Avast to Avira back in 2012.
Also:
All of the stories keep talking about people who opt in getting reamed. I mean I get it if someone doesn’t read the fine print and ignorantly agrees to having their porn library sold to Home Depot. But what about those who opt out? I’m more worried about if this is similar to a Windows 10 situation where selecting to “opt out” is just a placebo. -
January 28, 2020 at 9:37 pm #37525
Anonymous
GuestLooks like the chads that don’t use any antivirus win yet again.
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January 28, 2020 at 9:47 pm #37527
Anonymous
GuestSerious question:
What are the alternatives if you don’t trust Avast anymore? Kapersky? Bitdefender?-
January 28, 2020 at 9:50 pm #37529
Anonymous
GuestKaspersky calls home to the Kremlin
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/is-kaspersky-safe,news-25983.html-
January 28, 2020 at 9:52 pm #37533
Anonymous
GuestI still trust Russians more than the globohomo.
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January 28, 2020 at 9:53 pm #37535
Anonymous
GuestSame but it’s still not a great alternative
Just use ClamAV for Winblows if you have to
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January 28, 2020 at 11:34 pm #37543
Anonymous
GuestSo in short the vatniks know my porn searches, what now?
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January 28, 2020 at 9:49 pm #37528
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January 28, 2020 at 9:50 pm #37530
Anonymous
GuestIs anyone actually surprised?
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January 28, 2020 at 9:51 pm #37531
Anonymous
Guestgently caress Avast. The worst antivirus company out there.
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January 28, 2020 at 9:52 pm #37534
Anonymous
GuestAV companies spy on users, what else is new?
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January 28, 2020 at 10:16 pm #37537
Anonymous
GuestHoly shit just use windows defender, ublock origin with malware/malvertising lists(using a pi-hole is optional, but recommend) and occasionally do a scan with malwarebytes and you wont ever get a virus.
Using these resource hogging anti-virus suites only serves to slow down your computer.
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January 29, 2020 at 3:04 am #37550
Anonymous
Guest>Windows 10 doesnt spy on you
Literally are you six-
January 29, 2020 at 3:42 am #37553
Anonymous
GuestI didn’t say it doesn’t spy on you, all i’m saying is that’s the only AV you need if you’re on windows.
Of course, if you actually cared about being spied upon. You wouldn’t be using wangblows at all.
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January 28, 2020 at 11:20 pm #37541
Anonymous
GuestDoesn’t this violate the GDPR in YUROPOOR? Just complain to EU and see them gently caress up this garbage company
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January 28, 2020 at 11:49 pm #37547
Anonymous
Guest>Google was the good guys all along
>Home Depot is plotting to monopolize the internet, tech, medicine, eventually government.
We were too late bros.-
January 29, 2020 at 3:06 am #37551
Anonymous
Guestsays the zombie that got brainwashed by google. like you would get the truth from a platform that is literally owned and controlled by google.
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January 29, 2020 at 3:48 am #37554
Anonymous
GuestHow do we warn normalfags about """free software and services""" without looking like a paranoid schizophrenic?
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January 29, 2020 at 6:38 am #37560
Anonymous
GuestThis is partly thanks to them installing a modified chromium that just has a modified https everywhere and modified ublock origin preinstalled.
And every company WILL sell your data. They have given up on every last ethical practice since they figured out all they have to do is donate to Dems and put up rainbow flags every year for globohomo.
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January 29, 2020 at 9:45 am #37564
Anonymous
GuestYES, this is PROPRIETARY software, YES, it runs on ring 0 ehehehehe, BUT YOU CAN TRUST US.
We only want the BEST for a go-I mean GUY like you, yes, mhmm yes, heuehuehuehe.
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January 29, 2020 at 10:05 am #37565
Anonymous
Guest>y-you can still opt out! We swear! DON’T LEAVE!
So is this an actual opt out or a Windows 10 "opt out lol-not-really"
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January 29, 2020 at 12:27 pm #37569
Anonymous
Guest>free AV makes money selling user data
What! No way!-
January 30, 2020 at 5:19 am #37575
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January 29, 2020 at 12:38 pm #37570
Anonymous
Guest-
January 29, 2020 at 12:47 pm #37571
Anonymous
GuestAvast is even more invasive than Windows 10 in many areas
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February 1, 2020 at 9:47 am #38204
Anonymous
GuestHey gently caresstards,
Avast Anti virus downloaded itself after
not even checking it probably downloading other software,
Bitdefender requires email login (so they know you anyway)
besides all this these citizen’s privacy (no-)rights respecting
companies know your IP even when using VPN since it takes time
to load, & not one can say they are guaranteed private.
Internet can be easily accessible for many, but really
for alot of the sheeple commentary & other more broader nonsense it carries & disseminates it just sucks.
You Welcome
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