When the product is free YOU are the product.

But paying for it might not change that.

 

https://www.engadget.com/2020/01/27/avast-jumpshot-selling-user-data/

 

 

Unfortunately, this is true for most programs, browsers, social media and the rest.

I am truing to be selective what I use, but it only helps to some extend.

Apart from stopping using Internet and smart phone, what are the suggestions?

16 hours ago, Tulak said:

Apart from stopping using Internet and smart phone, what are the suggestions?

Use a program to see what is being sent out from your machine - Glass Wire is one example. Use that (if willing to pay for it) or another firewall program and basically block outgoing stuff by trial and error.

 

There was some comments on Avast forums a while ago about the the "phoning home" from the program and someone said they had blocked a number of the connections using their hosts file. 

 

On android I use AF Wall to basically block everything other than my browser on the few occasions I bother to use it.

 

Just a few examples to possibly start you looking.

9 hours ago, topt said:

Use a program to see what is being sent out from your machine - Glass Wire is one example. Use that (if willing to pay for it) or another firewall program and basically block outgoing stuff by trial and error.

 

There was some comments on Avast forums a while ago about the the "phoning home" from the program and someone said they had blocked a number of the connections using their hosts file. 

 

On android I use AF Wall to basically block everything other than my browser on the few occasions I bother to use it.

 

Just a few examples to possibly start you looking.

Obviously you are better with computers than I - so thanks for that, will look into this.

What do you think about Glary Utilities and Brave browser?

 

2 hours ago, Tulak said:

Obviously you are better with computers than I

Thanks but probably not - just a lot of reading up online over the last few years.

2 hours ago, Tulak said:

What do you think about Glary Utilities and Brave browser?

I have been using Brave for I guess 18 months or so now. It is by no means perfect but it is working well for me. It automatically blocks ads for example but make sure you go into settings and tweak those.

Second choice for browser is Firefox but apparently you need to "harden" it to stop potential data loss -

https://github.com/ghacksuserjs/ghacks-user.js/wiki/1.1-Overview

 

Here are a few links for when you are bored 

https://fried.com/privacy

https://proprivacy.com/guides/the-ultimate-privacy-guide

 

I have tried various utilities programs over the years but currently do not have any on my laptops and cannot remember . I would search online to see what the general views are, read their privacy notice and then take a view.

 

13 hours ago, topt said:

There was some comments on Avast forums a while ago about the the "phoning home" from the program

All the AV programs that I've tried over the years update their definitions.  Gotta phone home for that.  I would expect there would be info about your license, IP address, and a few other things: goes without saying, I guess. 

A way around that would be if you could download a data file that could be installed locally, but I don't know if any of them do this.