AVG antivirus was a decent antivirus application for Windows. Decent as in “there’s nothing else free that doesn’t stink quite so bad”.

The application did an OK job of keeping viruses out, but it’s main strength was the 100% free price tag.

Earlier this month, though, AVG announced that if you continue to use their application on your PC, they NOW have the rights to “sell your search and browser history data to advertisers” if you’re using their application.

In very plain English, if you are currently running AVG antivirus on your PC…

• AVG antivirus is ACTIVELY WATCHING WHERE YOU SURF
• AVG antivirus is ACTIVELY WATCHING WHAT YOU SEARCH FOR
• AVG antivirus is collecting ALL METADATA in your web browsers (cookies, history, etc)

AVG said it doesn’t matter what browser you use on your PC. If you’re still using their product, you automatically agree AVG can take your personal information and sell it to whatever advertisers they can find to do whatever they want with.

AVG said, quite bluntly, they’re doing this to make money.

Such a nice buncha people. So super nice. I wanna take a nice baseball bat to these nice people’s heads they’re so nice.

The other BIG problem is even after you uninstall their antivirus application, AVG has not provided a way to delete the data they already collected on you, and they’re not providing any way for you to look up what they took from your PC.

There’s a big story on both Wired and SMH about this mess.

If you have AVG antivirus on your PC, it’s time to uninstall it and find a replacement. I currently recommend ESET for “premium” antivirus and the built-in-to-windows Microsoft Defender for “free” antivirus.