And of course, this information is very valuable to advertisers.Īfter being outed by researchers, Avast stopped collecting and selling user data this way. Voila! You can now connect all the data for that device ID with me, and get a ton of information about exactly what I do online. Knowing that device ID xyz logged into your website at the exact same time that a user named Heinrich Long also logged in would make it easy to figure out that device ID xyz belongs to me. With that level of data gathering, buyers of Avast’s data would have a good chance of discovering a user’s actual identity by correlating device ID’d activities with activities of known users. Further, the data that was collected was extremely detailed, including every every click the user made, and the exact millisecond they made that click.
That ID was unique to each installation of Avast antivirus meaning that every bit of data collected could be assigned to a particular installed copy of antivirus. While the company claimed that the data they collected could not be used to identify or target you, every data record included a unique device ID. In 2019, privacy experts discovered that Avast was using their antivirus products to collect user data which was then sold to third parties. What kind of sketchy things are we talking about? Read on… Parent company caught collecting and selling user data All in all, we would much prefer to see AVG Secure VPN as a completely independent service, rather than its current status. Worse, Avast has been caught doing some sketchy things in the past.
In addition, the network has a limited capacity for streaming geo-blocked content and P2P (torrenting) activities. This reflects badly on AVG’s VPN because the Avast network is not large, nor is it particularly fast, based on our tests. One result of that transaction is that AVG Secure VPN shares the same VPN server network as Avast Secureline VPN (see our Avast VPN review).
AVG VPN FOR MAC REVIEW SOFTWARE
In 2016, Avast Software agreed to buy AVG. But first, let’s cover some background information. No review of AVG Secure VPN is complete without discussing past activities of the parent company. AVG Secure VPN shares servers with Avast SecureLine VPN It is surely better than places like the United States or the UK, but not as good as some other locales we discuss on this site. Even though the country is not party to the FVEY (Five Eyes) or other major international surveillance organizations, it does reportedly cooperate with them at times.Īs a result, we consider the Czech Republic to be a decent location for a security and privacy company. While some seem to consider the Czech Republic an excellent location for a VPN, we wouldn’t go quite that far. AVG is owned by Avast Software s.r.o.ĪVG is owned by Avast Software s.r.o., which is based in Prague, Czech Republic. Given the unusual circumstances surrounding the AVG Secure VPN, we thought we should talk about those issues right up front. Here are some things that are very important to know about AVG Secure VPN.
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