Beware: Avast and AVG are officially snoopware!

[Marcus Fenix]

I have been using only windows 10 ltsc 1809 and defender for past 8 months now,the amount of bloatware they put into this shit is just below Xiaomi (funny since I'm typing this on my redmi note 7).

Even after disabling quite a lot of telemetry settings Windows 10 sends out a ton of stuff. I didn't even know about all of those until I started using piHole.

This is the stats for a single day only.

Xiaomi in my experience is no worse than Samsung going by pihole logs and comparing the blocked queries on my Galaxy S9 and my mom's Note 5 Pro,

OnePlus seems to be very decent though.

 

[Rockfella]

There is no such thing as free lunch

Post automatically merged: Feb 22, 2020

I have been using only windows 10 ltsc 1809 and defender for past 8 months now,the amount of bloatware they put into this shit is just below Xiaomi (funny since I'm typing this on my redmi note 7).

You can uninstall almost all of windows bloatware using Ccleaner. I only keep calculator installed. There are some softwares that we can't remove but we can get rid of 95% of it.

 

[llerwell0]

The only free antivirus I use is the one which I use in the Windows built in honestly anyway. I would never recommend anyone to install anything which have such antivirus software in them honestly. So let's hope it will fix themself really. They do collect info.

 

[Darth_Infernus]

Well, I use some computers with paid versions of AVG/Avast. The paid versions snoop a lot too. You'll get random alerts that your IP address is visible, please get VPN. You may open gmail one fine day and AVG/Avast will alert you to add the email signature for "peace of mind" for your friends. The main interface will give you advertisements from time to time.

Go to a fishy site or sites discussing some risky things and AVG/Avast will pop an alert asking you to buy their VPN. It's too surreal, almost like surveillance on the user.

It's a good product and protection rates are good, I still wouldn't mind recommending Avast/AVG for the average person who doesn't care too much. But if you're doing anything remotely sensitive or care a lot about your privacy, this probably isn't the product to use.

I actually believe most AV products do snoop to some extent and probably BullGuard, Emsisoft, eScan, K7 and BitDefender are the products that are least on the snooping while still giving a decent protection.

 

[red dragon]

After Corona pandemic and data leaks from our computers, we were forced to uninstall all 3rd party antivirus ( free/ paid) and disable the inbuilt one in Windows 10 ( this was apparently the biggest culprit!)
And they remotely installed a very small AV, called webroot in each and every laptop of the people who have access to all internal emails in early March 2020. Few days later, they installed some 3rd party firewall ( possibly Outpost)
I'm not a technical person and do not understand these things. But Webroot is very very light ( lighter in the inbuilt one) and never ever shows up in the main screen, remains absolutely silent in the corner. I don't know ( or care ) if it leaks anything, but it's not annoying at all. Even without AV I didn't get infected yet ( using Windows 10 only for 6-7 months) but my internet usage is very boring.

 

[booo]

^if you are concerned about data leaks. Just use Linux in a USB key and don’t do anything classified on windows. Windows has inbuilt telemetry for gathering data. (Read windows is the virus)

 

[Crapmypants]

The company of a friend of mine recently asked all employees working from home to install avast on their systems. It seems it cannot be uninstalled without a code that the company must provide. Anyone come across this before or know of a workaround?

 

[red dragon]

^if you are concerned about data leaks. Just use Linux in a USB key and don’t do anything classified on windows. Windows has inbuilt telemetry for gathering data. (Read windows is the virus)

There are Windows / Mac only softwares we must use. Yes I've heard about Wine etc. but my knowledge of Linux is below rudimentary. And music production is nightmare in Linux. Ardour is a piece of shit.

 

[booo]

The company of a friend of mine recently asked all employees working from home to install avast on their systems. It seems it cannot be uninstalled without a code that the company must provide. Anyone come across this before or know of a workaround?

usually anti-viruses install filter drivers. i.e., file system filter drivers, network filter drivers and many more. the above mentioned behavior is equivalent to ransomware. simplest solution would be to reimage the system. on the other hand to cleanup without reimaging, you have to use a combination of tools to remove individual drivers and software. sysinternal tools like autoruns and process explorer etc... to cleanup individual filter drivers and other hooks into the OS. sometimes you will have to boot into safe mode because these programs hook into registry calls and add themselves again if the detect that you are manually removing them. (doesnt it sound like virus?) At the end you will waste so much time that you will give up and then reimage the system.

 

[Marcus Fenix]

^if you are concerned about data leaks. Just use Linux in a USB key and don’t do anything classified on windows. Windows has inbuilt telemetry for gathering data. (Read windows is the virus)

Or else deploy a pihole and let telemetry and ads go sulk in the corner.

This is running on a Raspberry Pi Zero W which needs so little power that I have been running it by connecting it to the USB 2.0 port of my router.

When it comes to ads you won't see too much difference if you are running an adblocker on your PC but the real deal is when you browse on mobile devices and see clean AF websites.

 

[red dragon]

^^ Very interesting...can a noob set up something like that?

 

[booo]

^^ Very interesting...can a noob set up something like that?

pi hole sounds really cool. so its just a dns server but filters out all the things. which means you have to use it as a dns server on your laptop's internet settings. since you can deploy it as a docker container, it should be a breeze to setup.
work flow would be:
1. install docker on pc
2. install pi-hole as container. execute "https://github.com/pi-hole/docker-pi-hole/blob/master/docker_run.sh" script.
3. once you have pi-hole running. just go to ethernet adapter's ipv4 settings and change the dns server to pi-hole.

I know this wont be simple for non computer people but still, its a really interesting idea. There is a device that does all of this easily. its called https://firewalla.com/pages/about-us you just connect it to your network and it does everything. but then the founders of that company are chinese

 

[red dragon]

^^Containg Corona is easier!! I used to double click on executable files, now I right click and choose run as administrator. That's all I know about installing software!!

 

[Party Monger]

^^ Very interesting...can a noob set up something like that?

Yes easily. Its as simple as using email if you can follow commands. Just follow commands one after other. Copy paste. easier if you have a mac (terminal instead of putty)
Order a rpi zero, and 16gb sd card. flash raspian to sd card (balena etcher), enable ssh & wifi by putting a file & editing a file with wifi details (google) on card, put card in pi, boot it up, check router for ip, then ssh into it. Then update, upgrade, install pi hole, remember password, it gives you the address you must open to see pi hole admin interface, and its basically ready. All of the above takes 1hr when you do it the first time, 15 mins second time. Just go at it, dont think, its that easy. Plenty of youtube videos will show you step by step what to do, and commands in text that you copy paste.

 

[red dragon]

Thanks, what's a rpi zero? Forgive my ignorance.

 

[Crapmypants]

Thanks, what's a rpi zero? Forgive my ignorance.

Raspberry Pi Zero

Buy a Raspberry Pi Zero W – Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi Zero W extends the Pi Zero family and comes with added wireless LAN and Bluetooth connectivity.

www.raspberrypi.org

Small single board computer used by DIY enthusiasts etc.

 

[Veek M]

no need to use an AvP.. I've used all sorts of AvPs and they only slow things down I dual boot from Linux so if I do need to scan a USB I just reboot into Linux and look at the USB (guess you could use the Linux scanner) Currently I use linux full time so.. been a while since I've actually tried things out.

 

[Darth_Infernus]

After Corona pandemic and data leaks from our computers, we were forced to uninstall all 3rd party antivirus ( free/ paid) and disable the inbuilt one in Windows 10 ( this was apparently the biggest culprit!)
And they remotely installed a very small AV, called webroot in each and every laptop of the people who have access to all internal emails in early March 2020. Few days later, they installed some 3rd party firewall ( possibly Outpost)
I'm not a technical person and do not understand these things. But Webroot is very very light ( lighter in the inbuilt one) and never ever shows up in the main screen, remains absolutely silent in the corner. I don't know ( or care ) if it leaks anything, but it's not annoying at all. Even without AV I didn't get infected yet ( using Windows 10 only for 6-7 months) but my internet usage is very boring.

Webroot is a bad product. Good luck.

It's also basically useless without a 24/7 Internet connection.

 

[red dragon]

I'm connected all the time. Why is it bad? At least it doesn't bother much and comes your way in middle of work. It's mandatory, can not uninstall, can't even see it in control panel!!
However I have removed all sensitive documents to a thumbdrive.
Does Windows monitor Skype calls also?

 

[aasimenator]

Am I the only one who never uses an AV on their Windows PC? my PC is exclusive and is not in used by anyone except me, everyone one else at home can get by with whatever phone they have with the need of ever wanting a pc. I am aware of all the trickery that's going on in Windows 10 and I have disabled every single one of them including the sh*tty Windows Apps Store, use a debloating software. I think if you are careful as to what you are browsing, downloading and viewing you wouldn't need any sort of Anti-Virus plus having the knowledge of removing a Virus is also important.

I've never faced a virus attack of any kind neither here on my PC or any of the servers that I manage or run. You need 2 thinks in the enterprise environment one is a Software Restriction policy on the domain and the other is a good firewall. We dont have any AV's on our network server as well including 10 Remote Desktop servers catering to over 800 users.

I have never recommended AntiVirus Software to anyone, if you have to have one, there is nothing better than Windows 10 Defender.

PiHole is another great suggestion, something I've implemented a few times before for clients, but never personally. But planning to in future.