A few weeks ago my installation of AVG Free started to get whiny about an upgrade to the latest version 8.
At first I thought this was some seedy ploy to force ‘free’ users to upgrade to the ‘paid’ version of AVG. However, it seems you could still choose to download and install their wonderful ‘free’ version of AVG 8. So, this is what I did.
Sadly, I was duped.
It now seems that AVG, ever the staple of transparency and generosity, just got rather underhanded.
As soon as version 8 was installed I had a new ‘AVG Taskbar’ thrown into Firefox, something I did not agree to. Also, AVG now seems to be embedded into my web searches (see above screenshot).
The bottom line is that this is spyware. I didn’t expect it, I didn’t ask for it and it was pushed into my desktop using frankly out-of-character tactics.
This is really very sad as I have been a fan of AVG for a number of years after having many pains with Norton over the years. In fact, I have on a number of occasions helped friends and family install AVG’s free applications as their sole source of internet security.
It seems a shame that all of this now has to change.
I was pretty disappointed with AVG 8 Free as well, as it’s more intrusive than what it used to be.
I disabled the link check function that appears in search results, but I don’t see anything more than that – like a toolbar – in Firefox. If there still is something installed onto Firefox, how would I remove it?
If you look under Firefox – Tools – Add Ons it looks like they are plug-ins which can simply be disabled.
Not ideal of course but it seems to work.
I can not find an AVG extension installed into my Firefox. It could be that they changed it, because I waited longer than you did before I downloaded it.