Which AVs respect the users' privacy ?

Discussion in 'other anti-virus software' started by Fly, Apr 4, 2009.

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  1. Fly

    Fly Registered Member

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    I'm currently on McAfee (Virusscan Plus), but not for long since I won't renew.

    One of the things in making a new choice that I consider important is whether/to what extent an AV (vendor) respects the users' privacy.

    One could google for 'McAfee example privacy policy' or something to that extent. I guess it must have been updated, because the last time I checked it, it LOOKED a lot worse. Basically, McAfee shares 'personal' data with Doubleclick and many other parties, for marketing and possibly other purposes.

    If it were necessary to gather a very limited amount of data just for operating the AV, ok.

    This may be a question to which I cannot get a proper answer.

    Of course, it's not just about the policy, but also about WHAT REALLY HAPPENS.

    Which AVs are 'clean' in this regard ?

    Looking for any help.
     
  2. gery

    gery Registered Member

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    I have seen a lot of complaint about them and i know what you mean. i think AVG, AVAST, BITDEFENDER,AVIRA are clean.
     
  3. Taliscicero

    Taliscicero Registered Member

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    Protip: Any AV that runs out of America or the UK Don't consider your privacy safe, Avast/Kaspersky. Are two companies i know are safe.

    Bad Privacy AV.
    =
    Norton.
    Mcafee.
    Trend.
    Panda.
    Quickheal.

    If i listed your AV in the bad privacy list, Don't flame me for your Fanboy'ism, And the reason i say these are bad privacy AV's are because they have all had privacy Flaws/Problems IE: Norton/Quickheal both use india call centers and there are problems with those call centers selling your information overseas ect.
     
    Last edited: Apr 4, 2009
  4. lodore

    lodore Registered Member

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    I would say Kl,eset,Avast,F-secure,vipre,Drweb,Sophos
    thats about it tbh.

    btw dont forget about the avg toolbar. definatly not in my good list.

    btw sophos said in a magazine awhile back that would would seek protection against anything that finds its way on to their customers laptops including goverment trojans.
     
    Last edited: Apr 4, 2009
  5. risl

    risl Registered Member

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    Never heard anything negative about Dr.Web regarding privacy issues.
     
  6. Taliscicero

    Taliscicero Registered Member

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    Viper is a no-no, They have some business connections i would rather they did not deal with.

    And yeah AVG's Toolbar is bad.

    ESET could possibly be a risk because they have an office in San'diego and America is well known for its collecting of any data going down its internet.
     
  7. mvdu

    mvdu Registered Member

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    Just curious - did you leave Avira out on purpose?
     
  8. lodore

    lodore Registered Member

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    Hey,
    just wasnt sure.
     
  9. Nebulus

    Nebulus Registered Member

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    I'd say Avira does respect privacy, for the simple fact that it doesn't transfer any information about users when it connects to the updates site.
     
  10. elapsed

    elapsed Registered Member

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    I can't believe you're ruling out AV's based on country, and the UK!? Why haven't the conspiracy theorists jumped in yet? I'm sure you can link our anti-virus software to some form of terrorism.
     
  11. Thug21

    Thug21 Registered Member

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    Exactly what connections are you speaking of?
     
  12. Taliscicero

    Taliscicero Registered Member

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    UK and the US have an Open intelegance policy when the UK was going to expose some of the US's "BAD" Practices they threatened to close the agreement so the UK declined and is still activly shareing Intelegance with the US so that rules the UK out as safe :D

    I don't wanna get into that because fanboys will have at me like a piece of steak, Also I wont comment on it for fear of any legal problems.
     
  13. 1000db

    1000db Registered Member

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    I am currently trying out Vipre...what do I need to be aware of? FWIW ISP's seem to be a bigger threat to privacy.
     
  14. Taliscicero

    Taliscicero Registered Member

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    I won't say, Viper is a very good program and is great for detection, But some things worry me about Sunbelt so much so that i wont even trial the program, but again i wont comment further.

    Mostly for ethical reasons.

    And yeah ISP's are a big problem, Only way to win over the ISP is encrypted traffic :D
     
  15. Coolio10

    Coolio10 Registered Member

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    Yeah....until your ISP throttles encrypted traffic like mine.:argh:
     
  16. Taliscicero

    Taliscicero Registered Member

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    Hah, ISP's are Sneaky :D
     
  17. mvdu

    mvdu Registered Member

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    If you were wondering, I wasn't bashing you. Just wanted to know if you knew anything about Avira.

    How does everyone think Comodo is in privacy?
     
  18. hbkh

    hbkh Registered Member

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    I'm not taking sides or anything... But I would be careful about making accusations about a company and not be willing to back it up with evidence... :rolleyes:
     
  19. Taliscicero

    Taliscicero Registered Member

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    I don't want to make this into a flame thread so stop asking me please, And i have freedom to speak anyway.
     
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2009
  20. vijayind

    vijayind Registered Member

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    What the hell ?? You are one seriously delusional dude. Its highly annoying running into such doggy ppl, who don't know whats the truth ....

    For a fact more than 50% of banking and credit card firm run call centers from India. You think they would be the first to shift, if INDIA was so bad on the privacy front .... But they haven't and they are actually slowly expanding.

    The banking and credit card call centers employ uber security including call monitoring software (by an israeli company, I think its called Phantom) and also backup of all conversation. But cheap ass, Symantec goes for the bottom of the barrel and gets just that. Its moronic how people are focussing less on the bad practises of Symantec and blaming India instead.

    You mention Quickheal, prove one case where credit card info of a quick heal user was comprimised. How did you reach that conclusion.

    I can't understand why no moderator hasn't intervened yet.
     
  21. Martijn2

    Martijn2 Registered Member

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    I guess every company put's money on the first place, you can't really say for a 100% that it is privacy friendly.
     
  22. Saraceno

    Saraceno Registered Member

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    Any company in any country can be unethical.

    Actually, you can have a trustworthy company and it only needs one person in that company to give it a bad reputation.
     
  23. lodore

    lodore Registered Member

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    Hello,
    I think avira are alright in the context of this thread.
    I once got a fre secure email certificate from comodo from the MS office website and it was fine. so i can only assume the rest of there company is fine also.
     
  24. elapsed

    elapsed Registered Member

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    It just seems borderline racist (countryist?) in a way to me to exclude perfectly good applications based on the region they were created. I assume you don't use Microsoft? No router either since a lot of those companies are american.

    How could you trust the software of a forum? Reading a website? Google?

    If we truly had this kind of bias the world is screwed further than I thought. A small company just starting in the UK trying to grow would have no chance because of customers fear of having their identity sold to the US.
     
  25. Taliscicero

    Taliscicero Registered Member

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    I hate when people bring race into things, When i am just talking about common sense, The US is well known for Wiretapping/ISP-Logs. So clearly anything going past the US Internet servers is suspect, I wasn't saying that the American people are bad or anything I'm just saying that some of the US's government policies on network traffic are questionable.
     
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