"Many companies do this type of collection every day and do not tell their users," the spokesperson said. "Although some of the data they classify as 'non-personal' might not identify individuals directly, they may be indirectly identifiable based on that data."Īn AVG spokesperson explained that any non-personal data it collected and potentially sold to advertisers would be cleaned and anonymised, making it impossible to link it back to individual users. "It appears that AVG is adopting a generous interpretation of the data protection rules in order to justify its data use policy," Lynskey argued. "Its privacy policy is written in clear and simple language," she told WIRED, adding that users might expect an antivirus provider to be "more respectful" of their privacy and data security. Orla Lynskey, a data protection and IT law expert from London School of Economics, welcomed the change in language but said users would be justifiably concerned by the implications. The company does not specify that this includes browser and search history data. In fact, the new Microsoft Windows 10 update is blocked for systems running AVG or Avast. However, many security software users, especially Avast and AVG (some of the world's biggest anti-malware suites), reported that can’t find the new update on their system. In its privacy policy, Avast, which also provides free security software, explains that it is able to collect certain non-personal information and sell it to advertisers. Microsoft Windows 10 Update 1909 Is Blocked. The company has a 8.6 percent share of the global market, behind Microsoft on 19.4 percent and Avast on 21.4 percent. Note that any and every keyword/keyphrase in Google search page that has a ‘Cached’ link (like the second screenshot above) leads to this security warning.It is utterly unethical to the highest degree and a complete and total abuse of the trust we give our security softwareĪlexander Hanff, chief executive, Think PrivacyĪVG is the third most popular antivirus product in the world according to market analysis from software firm Opswat. If you have AVG installed, get it’s Search Shield activated and let us hear if you can also see the above issue. But what if it is due to some kind of hidden war between the Big ‘G’ and AVG? If it is so, I think it is easy to imagine who is going to lose this battle. If it is the former, then hopefully it will eventually be spotted by AVG (hope someone from AVG is reading this) and will be rectified. Or still worse, this is some kind of anti-Google action that AVG has decided to take up. Either it is a glitch (I would call it ‘serious’) on the AVG side. Looks like something very serious is going on between AVG and Google. So it appears that AVG Antivirus 9.0 Search Shield, for some reason, is identifying Google’s IP address as an active threat and warning the user to stay away. Open the AVG in any way you prefer, for example, by double-clicking on the desktop shortcut AVG AntiVirus FREE, or right-click on it and select Open from the menu. Google Cached Link that Caused the above Warning! And as expected, it lead me to Google’s home page (try that yourself to be sure) □ To double verify, I clicked the “click here” (refer above screenshot) link and it indeed took me to the Google Cache page! I chose different browser because AVG Search Shield was ONLY activated in Firefox) and hit enter. Anyway just to confirm it I copy-pasted the IP ( 74.125.153.132) into a different browser’s address bar (Chrome and IE. Without even testing, I was damn sure that the above IP address that was being inappropriately flagged as suspicious by AVG was the IP address of one of Google’s server. This was confusing and at the same time intriguing. Please follow one of the suggestions below to continue: Without protection, such as that in the AVG Security Toolbar and AVG, your computer is at risk of being compromised, corrupted or having your identity stolen. The page you are trying to access has been identified as a known exploit, phishing or social engineering web site and therefore has been blocked for your safety. And lo and behold! AVG Search Shield blocked the Cache page with this message:ĭanger: AVG Search-Shield has detected active threats on this page and has blocked access for your protection. While searching something out of curiosity I clicked the “Cached” link under the search link. Since Firefox is my default browser, the AVG Search Shield acts automatically on the Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page) ( Google being my default search engine). I am using AVG Antivirus Free Edition 9.0.709 and has the AVG Search Shield enabled. Today during my daily Googling I noticed this.
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