Updates with assumed extras ...
 

In recent days I've been invited to update to the latest versions of both Avast and AVG.

Each of them had small print offers and boxes already ticked which, if not noticed and unticked, would have installed other crap - toolbars, browsers, and other programs which they assume I cannot live without.

Mind you, AVG and Avast are not alone here. Quite a few programs offered these days have partially hidden assumptions built into their install routines which, unless deleted or declined, will go ahead and install things which you never expected or wanted.

I regard this as totally dishonest, and having had to already disinfect a couple of friends machines who hadn't noticed the extra stuff they were assumed to need, I getting a bit pi**ed off with these devious tactics.

I wish them all a generous dose of the pox!

Me-thinks these represent a marketing gambit intended to increase the use of the "surprise" software. A cynic might suspect they were paid to include the near-stealth downloads. Not I, of course.

Of course they are paid for including the toolbars in the download. Its how the free downloads are paid for.....without the addons, there wouldn't be anything free. Its simple enough just to untick the box at download time.

And don't let the addons put you off Avast. The new version is quite brilliant, with an advert blocking web plugin, and a routine which checks how up to date other software is, and whether its vulnerable. It will check and recommend updates for flash / adobe / java and more

Agreed, trouble is it tends to do it at the most inconvenient time. :)

No such thing as a free lunch FOR.

How else do you expect them to fund your free software ?

Buy a proper commercial anti-virus and you won't have any of those silly problems associated with the free brigade.

Are you running AVG and Avast together? http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...milies/eek.gifhttp://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...milies/eek.gif

Hell no! Different computers. (Please) :8
I didn't suggest that there was and I'm not sure why you did. However I reckon you probably pay the same I do for my Browser, PPrune access, Google, Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket, Yahoo Groups etc - shall I go on?

I actually did that for about 15+ years at $100 pa. Then guess what? A Trojan! Since that time, I've followed the thread of valuable advice from this august group as to what works and what doesn't. If it's free and meets my needs, why wouldn't I use it - along with most of the items in the list above.

My point in raising this was simply to alert users to the fact that both AVG and Avast now include additional software in their upgrades which you need to decline if you don't want the surprise of discovering that default programs in your machine have been pushed aside and replace by the unexpected. I've had to deal with that in the computers of a couple of friends, and I've better things to do with my time that undo problems caused by "trojans" of this kind.

The one that annoys me is Java, which installs a bloaty browser bar unless you're very alert to remove it. I understand why they do it, but still don't like it.

I've been using Avast for years, usually apply the updates within a Google or two of being notified they're available, and have never seen an "opt-in by default" part of the install, except for a year or two ago, when Google Chrome was offered (and pre-ticked) as part of the Avast Free package, on initial install.

Certainly the update routines tend to lead one toward trying the full (and paid) alternatives, as the section to be ticked in order to keep the free version are a little less blingy than the other sections, but that's to be expected.

Yes Chrome is still installed unless unticked - if it's not already there. If Chrome is already present, with the version 8 update now being recommended, it will attempt to install Google Drive unless you are alert to what's proposed.

FOR