Avast Premier 2017 -

Though the major privacy scandal broke in 2019/2020, the roots were in this era. It was later revealed that Avast was harvesting user browsing data through its plugins and selling it to third parties for market analysis. While the company claimed the data was anonymized, it was a devastating blow to the brand's trust, leading them to eventually shut down their "Jumpshot" subsidiary.

In 2017, identity theft was a rising concern. The Data Shredder tool allowed users to permanently delete sensitive files, such as tax documents or bank statements. Unlike standard deletion, which leaves traces on the hard drive, this tool overwrote the data multiple times, making it unrecoverable even with forensic software. 2. Automatic Software Updater avast premier 2017