- Jan 8, 2011
- 22,361
Read full article: Is Avira Browser Safety a Necessary Extension?
I understand there are many die-hard users of Avira and other Web Protection add-on's, so I advise to read the article before saying it's garbage. This article was posted in February 2017 and features or functionality of Avira Browser Safety may have changed since. However, I do agree with most arguments made and I find them a valid reason not to use or be dependent on ABS.
You Don’t Need Avira Browser Safety
"Assuming you’re using a good antivirus, you can skip ABS without concern because your antivirus program watches for online threats just fine."
I understand there are many die-hard users of Avira and other Web Protection add-on's, so I advise to read the article before saying it's garbage. This article was posted in February 2017 and features or functionality of Avira Browser Safety may have changed since. However, I do agree with most arguments made and I find them a valid reason not to use or be dependent on ABS.
- Tracking Protection
You won’t find many options to configure using Browser Safety. Click the extension’s icon on your toolbar and you’ll see that it automatically blocks all kinds of tracking around the web. ABS also enables Do Not Track in your browser, but most sites don’t honor this.
- Web Protection
In Google and Bing searches, you’ll see a little a green check or red X to show if a site is safe or not. If you try to visit a website that ABS thinks is unsafe, it will block your access. Clicking Take me away! redirects you to Avira SafeSearch. This is an inferior search engine that still includes unsafe sites in its results page for some reason.
Having the extension block unsafe sites and label them in Google is mostly redundant. Modern browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Edge know which sites contain malware and already warn you when accessing them. Google is smart about dangerous sites and won’t recommend them at the top of its results.
- PUP Protection
We downloaded uTorrent, a BitTorrent client known for bundling in loads of garbage, and didn’t hear a peep out of ABS. It didn’t have a problem with CutePDF either, which bundles similar offers.
ABS’ supposed blocking of software that includes extra crapware didn’t work at all. You can instead circumvent unsafe downloads by only downloading software from reputable sources and using Unchecky to automatically deselect bundled software offers.
- Price Comparison
When shopping on a compatible site, Avira will provide links to the same product available for less elsewhere. It promises that sites it links to are always safe, and offers coupons to try on the site you’re using. These coupons looked like a copied and pasted list right from RetailMeNot or a similar website. It offered deals like “25 percent off appliances storewide” instead of coupon codes.
You Don’t Need Avira Browser Safety
As we’ve seen, Avira Browser Safety offers little to the end user. Even worse than the above considerations are the past privacy and security concerns that antivirus extensions have caused.
Antivirus browser extensions can interfere with your browser’s normal functions and even snoop on your traffic, like Superfish did.
"Assuming you’re using a good antivirus, you can skip ABS without concern because your antivirus program watches for online threats just fine."
There are better extensions for tracking protection and price comparisons, modern browsers already protect you from unsafe sites, and the crapware blocking by this extension doesn’t even work. If you really want a second opinion on what’s safe or not, you could do far worse than this tool, but common sense is a much better shield.