AVG/Avast Online Security And SafePrice Lose Their Chrome Finish

Protection At What Price?

Mozilla and Opera have already removed the four apps in question, two from AVG and two from Avast and now Chrome is following suit, for the same reasons.  The applications in question do not just protect your browsing session but also harvest quite a bit of metadata, from the number of tabs you have open and how long you spend on them to which pages you browse and where you head from there.

The companies have stated all along that this practice was outlined in their user agreements, and that all personally identifiable information has been stripped out before it is stored, though we have seen past examples of how browsing habits can leave a unique fingerprint, even if a name or account is not associated with it.  What really caught The Inquirer’s notice was the statement that they also share this data with their own marketing analytics company, Jumpshot, which is something of a sore spot for companies which provide you your browsers, let alone your own personal concerns.

AVG and Avast are already in talks with all three providers to try to get their apps reinstated.