I should have known this was the case because of the old adage of there aint no such thing as free.
I've used AVG for many years and I have never paid for it. I have never had a virus, mostly because I don't click on stupid shit and I don't do a great deal of software piracy anymore. Those were the good ol' days of viruses I think, when it was your own damn fault because you clicked on just anything.
These days, I think that AVG is not alone in being a wolf in sheep's clothing in that they are supposed to be the ones protecting you but it is actually them that are doing the invading.
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I'm no computer expert. There was a time when I was a bit ahead of the curve as far as technology was concerned but then life happened and well, I got left behind. I do know that I have been using AVG for a very long time, it is basically the only anti-virus I have ever used and this is mostly because of the fact that you didn't have to pay for it.
Recently on a fresh install I noticed that when you download AVG they actually try to hide the free version and are quite tricky about how it is that you can actually install the free version. They keep trying to trick you into going for the paid version and I don't know who is dumb enough to fall for that but there must be a lot of them otherwise they wouldn't exist as a company.
The only thing I immediately noticed is that without my permission AVG SafeSearch browser became my default browser and like almost everyone else in the world, I like the browser that I use - which for me is Brave browser - and I do not want to use anyone else's.
This is a minor thing that is easily swapped back so I don't think it is a very big deal but it is still concerning to me because if they are doing that to you, what else are they doing? If the security guard is changing things without your permission it kind of worries me about what else might be going on behind the scenes.
Maybe I will get off my ass and actually learn how to use Linux one of these days because honestly, this is probably happening with a wide range of "free" programs that exist out there and from what I have heard and seen, Linux is basically the only way forward if you want to honest product. I'll just have to learn some stuff along the way which doesn't really concern me a great deal because of the fact that I don't really use my computer for anything other than the internet and the occasional typed up document.
The good news is that you don't really even need anti-virus for Linux either.
According to a number of websites, the computer world is very aware of AVG hijacking the hell out of people's browsers including changing their default search engine, homepage, and adding a search bar into various browsers when people didn't ask for them or grant permission. Fortunately it isn't very difficult to get rid of them and it is detailed here if you having the same problem. The problem has been around for a while and may have evolved since then. I'm just now finding out about it because I haven't done a fresh install in ages.