A message from Avast CEO Ondrej Vlcek

[RKRN3]

Avast's Shutdown of Jumpshot Will Harm the Web and the World - SparkToro

Last night, I got an email from Deren Baker, Jumpshot's CEO, informing me that the business would be winding down at the behest of their parent company,

sparktoro.com

So, do you think others should be held accountable now?

 

[Lenny_Fox]

When I took on the role as CEO of Avast seven months ago, I spent a lot of time re-evaluating every portion of our business. During this process, I came to the conclusion that the data collection business is not in line with our privacy priorities as a company in 2020 and beyond. It is key to me that Avast’s sole purpose is to make the world a safer place, and I knew that ultimately, everything in the company would have to become aligned with our North Star.

While the decision we have made will regrettably impact hundreds of loyal Jumpshot employees and dozens of its customers, it is absolutely the right thing to do. I firmly believe it will help Avast focus on and unlock its full potential to deliver on its promise of security and privacy. And I especially thank our users, whose recent feedback accelerated our decision to take quick action.

What struck me while reading this post.
The "it was not me" frame Ondrej sets up in this bulletin "When I took on the role of CEO seven months ago", he is telling explicitely that he can't be hold responsible for something his predecessor(s) have started. Only ..... his previous role was that of COO, Chief operations officer. Would not a COO know about a subsidiary, so what took him so long to follow his internal moral compass, his Nordstar of ethics or did public opinion and angry users "accelerate his 7-month decision process for quick action"

In communications this is also called a "Bullshit Bingo" and the prize is "an external event and reason to start new cutting costs programs", so "it was not me" Ondrej can show double digit profit percentage in a declining market (due to Windows Defender the free AV-market has a hard time at the moment) while dealing with negative publications (sales of user data).

The man is a genius and an inspiring example to other (tech) CEO's, Mr Ondrej Vlcek, this young man makes a deep bow, you could write a text book on "how to turn economical head wind and reputation damage into opportunities and profit".

P.S. I am really impressed, not (only) making jokes on the irony of the situation

 

[blackice]

Avast's Shutdown of Jumpshot Will Harm the Web and the World - SparkToro

Last night, I got an email from Deren Baker, Jumpshot's CEO, informing me that the business would be winding down at the behest of their parent company,

sparktoro.com

People trust google because they feel they have no choice, but this opt in collection gets all the attention. I’m not a fan of Avast, but I think they are just another target of the headline grabbing privacy fear mongering trend. The internet wasn’t built to be private, it was built to connect. Not that we should blindly trust these companies, but I don’t trust pcmag or any of the other SEO article operations any more than I trust Avast. Look at all the trackers on their sites, they are using the same tools they pretend to “expose”.

 

[plat]

It's not the hypocrisy, it's the degree and extent of it. "Everybody" does it but Avast has a certain track record. Look at Facebook and Google--grappling with several lawsuits, amounting to billions USD Cool. Have to draw the line somewhere at such egregious use and profiteering.

 

[Azure]

My issue was that I didn't feel like Avast addressed the problem adequately. They kept claiming that the data gets anonymized but I didn't hear any response about what some articles were saying about how easy it was to de-anonymide said data.

 

[Bryan320]

Is Kaspersky Cloud Security free good enough?

Kaspersky security cloud free is better in all ways you're basically getting everything in the free version as you are the paid version of kaspersky minus application control but system watcher is enough in it's own. Windows defender is another great tool!

 

[omidomi]

hey boys it need to wind down your job with NSA & FSB & ....&...(IDK another countries Security agencies )

 

[Trender]

Time freeze,EEK, Shadow Defender, Hitman Pro etc.

I'd user Linux before bothering with time freeze

 

[Bryan320]

avast forums was down but is now back up....

 

[oldschool]

This is a big topic for security enthusiasts, but I guess Avast users will not decrease significantly unless the media, such as newspapers and news shows, are loud. Avenger Joe is optimistic.

There are a few Avast users who are mad as he**, but truly the majority of them either are oblivious to the news or don't care.

 

[South Park]

I used to visit the Avast Forum regularly and saw complaints about the Jumpshot crapware ("Grimefighter") and unethical 3rd-party product support for years. In the heyday of Windows XP, Avast 4.x was the best free AV and I used it with no problems, but I could never find a version that worked properly with Windows 7. There were also some major problems around 2010 with Avast FP's which crippled computers worldwide. As WD has improved over the years, I don't think there's much reason to use a free 3rd-party AV, but to each their own

 

[RKRN3]

It's official: Avast will no longer share your data with advertisers

Antivirus maker ends longtime practice due to outrage

www.tomsguide.com

Tomsguide still recommends Avast.

 

[Cortex]

It's official: Avast will no longer share your data with advertisers

Antivirus maker ends longtime practice due to outrage

www.tomsguide.com

Tomsguide still recommends Avast.

Tom is entitled to his opinion - I'm often surprised at the amount of personal information people (voluntarily) give away on Facebook etc - for example, where they went to school, all work places, where they live, when they are on holiday, for how long, all personal relationships broken are otherwise & often on a public account - Numerous photographs, & giving almost every intimate detail of their lives for everyone to see - Avast never had anything as good as that

 

[Dex4Sure]

never a free av can overcome the protection of one paid.

More like 3rd party AV can never overcome protection that's built into the OS itself. And with Microsoft, money is not an issue... Microsoft is 1.29 trillion dollar company... Compare to Norton/Symantec for instance, its only 17 billion dollar company.

 

[Cortex]

More like 3rd party AV can never overcome protection that's built into the OS itself. And with Microsoft, money is not an issue... Microsoft is 1.29 trillion dollar company... Compare to Norton/Symantec for instance, its only 17 billion dollar company.

I bought several Windows versions over the years from 3.1, Windows 10 is free though, I wonder why?

 

[show-Zi]

I used to visit the Avast Forum regularly and saw complaints about the Jumpshot crapware ("Grimefighter") and unethical 3rd-party product support for years. In the heyday of Windows XP, Avast 4.x was the best free AV and I used it with no problems, but I could never find a version that worked properly with Windows 7. There were also some major problems around 2010 with Avast FP's which crippled computers worldwide. As WD has improved over the years, I don't think there's much reason to use a free 3rd-party AV, but to each their own

Avast was a champ of the past. The glory of the past should have been considered separately from the current ability.

 

[RKRN3]

Avast was a champ of the past. The glory of the past should have been considered separately from the current ability.

If you believe AV-Test as reliable, then Avast performs as better as Windows Defender. They both are in 2nd place.

 

[Digmor Crusher]

Nothing wrong with Avast's protection, just full of bloat and trying to sell useless addons.

 

[Captain Awesome]

Nothing wrong with Avast's protection, just full of bloat and trying to sell useless addons.

They are currently in lots of pressure due to data leak situation.

 

[RejZoR]

Everyone keeps screaming how they were doing it behind everyone's backs, but I'm confident that avast! has been asking for permission during installation in a full settings page manner. The latest one just included Jumpshot mentioned clearly on it, but before it was about data collection and sharing of that with 3rd parties. Can't find any screenshots now, but this has been around for quite some time. People just clicking Agree on everything and then blaming companies is nothing new either...

Also, I've been turning off data sharing settings in Privacy menu since like version 5 when they introduced analytics and stuff. Even my config file shared here under avast! section includes this. Only thing I always left enabled was CommunityIQ feature which is basically only for malware related analytics that feed the protection cloud. Everything else from internal analytics to 3rd party sharing was always disabled. And it's something I always do first after avast! installation. In fact I do this with ANY antivirus or program. Kinda surprised more people don't do this or are aware of it to begin with...