Antivirus software with same commitment to independence as Avira (pre-Norton)

Freddy Trot

New Member
Thread author
Apr 17, 2021
2
Hello - I see the conversation at Updates - NortonLifeLock to Acquire Avira , notably the comment
Also remember, this places Avira, a German AV under the jurisdiction of the USA, which is a no-go for a lot of folks around the world. Avira was actually pretty popular overseas for people not wanting to use US based antivirus products and they actually had pretty significant penetration in middle eastern countries. At one time in the past the Avira CEO started he would move the company elsewhere rather than compromise his company policies regarding intelligence backdoors and spying.
I'm a little late getting this news, I found this week that Avira installed a new even worse interface with -no- configuration controls to speak of that I could find. This reeks of the usual US strategy of acquire, incorporate technology, terminate source company.

Further, it raises the above concern of collusion with/cooptation by/function compromise on behalf of the western intelligence community (ignoring unknowns of the relationship of the BND with anglo agencies, etc. etc.). Intrusionware deliberately not detected, etc. The alternative, of products compromised by the Russian intelligence community, is equally unattractive. So: are there products which are closer to implementing Avira's original posture than others ? And which are not engaged in partnerships etc., e.g. with Avira, that make them vulnerable to cooptation and threaten that posture ? A map of the partnerships on SDK's, signatures, engines etc. would be greatly appreciated BTW, I've started reading/digging but it's a slog.

Thanks for your thoughts. Disclaim, I mean no offense to any nationality, I just find that the attitude which is heard too often in the US "if you have nothing to hide, why do you care about privacy?" is naive, rather than my viewpoint being so. As to product features, I don't want a "security suite", notably not a VPN, just core antivirus/anti-malware function. That no one has screwed with. Via state sanction or not.
 

The_King

Level 12
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Aug 2, 2020
542
This list shows the most popular AV companies and their country of origin.

I would suggest BitDefender has its based in Romania or you can go with G-Data which is based in Germany but uses the BD engine.

If you still want an AV using Avira's scan engine maybe look at Bullguard or F-Secure has they maybe be more configurable than the version of Avira you installed.
 

MacDefender

Level 16
Verified
Top Poster
Oct 13, 2019
779
I’m not sure government interference should be your top concern. For an APT group it is not hard at all to produce malware that’s custom and completely undetectable. Take SolarWinds for example — literally months and months of persistence at many companies including FireEye, and it’s not like their anti malware tools caught it — they caught it by pure stroke of luck due to enrolling a 2FA device suspiciously.

If you are seriously concerned about being targeted by custom malware, or a government agency, nothing off the shelf is going to acceptably protect you.
 

Lenny_Fox

Level 22
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Oct 1, 2019
1,120
What about Avast/AVG, since they were caught with their hand in the cookie box, they have adopted a decent privacy policy. For the coming years they will probably more popish than the pope when it comes to using customer data for commercial purposes (we all pay with our data when using free services).
 

Minimalist

Level 9
Verified
Well-known
Oct 2, 2020
439
What about Avast/AVG, since they were caught with their hand in the cookie box, they have adopted a decent privacy policy. For the coming years they will probably more popish than the pope when it comes to using customer data for commercial purposes (we all pay with our data when using free services).
From original post I guess that using data for commercial use is not what interests poster.
 

Freddy Trot

New Member
Thread author
Apr 17, 2021
2
Thanks all for your replies, good intro. Fwiw I don't know of a reason that the state should have a particular interest in me, if they do, they don't have enough to do, which would be odd in these times; it's more the opportunistic use of national technical capabilities, a la the strip club owner (I'm not one...) who was investigated for fraud using Patriot Act provisions... Or public speech that offended someone who operates in the "stuff happens" mode that's defiling our culture. It's a civil liberties thing. Thanks again.
 

entropism

Level 4
Verified
Jul 30, 2019
177
What about Avast/AVG, since they were caught with their hand in the cookie box, they have adopted a decent privacy policy. For the coming years they will probably more popish than the pope when it comes to using customer data for commercial purposes (we all pay with our data when using free services).
One major problem is that we have to trust them when they say they're better on privacy. And since they lied before, I have no reason to trust them now.
 

monkeylove

Level 10
Verified
Well-known
Mar 9, 2014
489
I think security program developers won't by default provide more independence because most users can't handle it, which means more telemetry, etc., will be needed to deal with issues involving upgrades for the OS and other software that might affect performance, cause crashes, etc., plus deal with different ways malware can be introduced, and so forth.

Meanwhile, for those who decide to use free versions (i.e., given, for example, the price of paying for licensing for several family or business computers), monetizing use is obviously inevitable to pay for operating expenses, updates, etc.
 

jetman

Level 10
Verified
Well-known
Jun 6, 2017
470
On Windows, Microsoft Defender is probably as good as any other product.
On iOS there is little benefit in installing any security products.

Even Android is pretty secure, provided that 1) it has the latest security updates and 2) you only install trusted apps and get these from the Play Store.
Personally, I like the safety net of a AV product on Android- in which case I would probably go for any of the well established names- Avira, Avast, F-Secure, Bitdefender, Norton etc.
But whether a Av product is necessary is debateable.

In my view, the main thing is to keep devices updated with the latest operating systems and don't install apps from untrusted sources.
 

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