Since Avast 8.x, antivirus has incorporated Google Analytics into the product. The company uses GA to find out how users of the app use the Avast UI, which places they visit, and more. Avast says this data is anonymous and that it uses it to improve the product.
When this behavior became known, Avast split a privacy setting available from the previous 19.6 version into two. It should be noted that the recently released version (19.7) tracking via Google Analytics is enabled by default, even if you had it disabled in the older version.
The company reports on notes version:
In an earlier version of avast if you did not choose to collect the data and share it, in the latest version, you will be automatically given consent to track Google Analytics (“Allow usage data sharing).
This of course annoyed at least one user who posted one post on the company's forum stating that this practice is not very good by Avast.
Avast replied that "It's an industry standard to have GA tracking"
In addition, Avast said that they keep nothing secret since the change is listed in the release notes.
We will not judge Avast, you can do it yourself once you have installed Avast free antivirus 19.72388. However, you need to make sure that not all privacy settings are selected.
To see it, follow these steps:
Open the Avast GUI, click Menu, and select Settings,
Select “Staff Privacy” and uncheck all three checkboxes for the options below.
- Share threat information with Avast to improve your Protection
- All usage data to be shared with 3rd parties for trends, business, and marketing analysis
- Allow usage data to be shared with 3rd parties for analysis of product performance and usage.
If you were using the older version you might have noticed that the third option did not exist.
Close the Avast Settings window and GUI, you have disabled tracking via Google Analytics.
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