How good and secure is Avast secure browser?

[Tim Lakinir]

Thank you everyone

[Knuth Konrad]

No special "secure" browsers needed these days. All major browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Edge (which is Chrome based as of lately)) are pretty secure. The major security thread is always the human using the browser, doing stupid things. Brain v1.0 with the addon SkepticThinking helps a lot to resolve the latter.

[Albert Richheimer]

I will give a shot at Tunnelbear or windscribe VPN which are free. I'm using Chrome now and malwarebytes and will try out Vivaldi, I have used Firefox and found it very slow I'm not too sure about Panda dome which I have never use before

As it has already been pointed out, VPN will not protect you from malware or phishing. You are protecting yourself by not clicking on dubious links and not entering any sensitive data on phishing sites. You always can check for the real link by hovering over a button, invoking the browser's tooltip fearure.

Talking about browsers – you might want to have a look at SRWare Iron. This browser does not call home, as the original chrome browser (from Google) does. But SRWare Iron still uses the chromium engine, so it is coherent in appearance.

Albert

[Dale Yarker]

Tim,

I believe you are confusing "VPN" with "Firewall". (you had help with this!)

VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. One example would be a company has a server and only employees working remotely and verified customers are to be allowed access. The Internet only acts as a carrier between clients and the server. The VPN prevents access by others, and often encrypts the data. IT IS PRIVATE BETWEEN CLIENTS AND SERVER(S).

You want protection on the public network.
A Firewall filters malware and scans from hackers trying to zombie your PC. they can also catch data sent by malware back to the hackers/malware writers.

Stopping phishing is dependent on you not clicking on suspicious links, or replying with private information. Phishing is an attack on a person over the 'net, not an attack on the person's computer.

Secure protocols over the web helps protect the "privacy" of your data while traversing the Internet, but is not a Private Network.

(A non-virtual private network could be leasing separate bandwidth from the phone company, getting your own fiber strands or copper between locations. (as examples))

Cheers,

[Brice Manuel]

Tim Lakinir I posted the link in another thread, you really need to use Sandboxie to protect your system when using the net.

[Tim Lakinir]

Thanks George, my concerns are : Need to have a secure VPN connection so that it can protect against phishing (when I surf the net) and
secondly to have a viable AV solution as my Malwarebytes AV isn't that good, it allows the malware infection and then I have to disinfect the computer.

But I have never use Linux, so the virtualization is beyond me

[George Bleck]

What is your concern? eavesdropping? or malware spread? (two different approaches to a solution).

VPN helps against eavesdropping but is not designed against malware (for the most part) unless they scan each file you download. Even then you are at the whim of whatever malware detection they use.

For the malware side, you can use virtualization (something like a Linux OS) and browse there to your hearts content and not worry about infection... just roll back the snapshot of the VM.

[Tim Lakinir]

Thanks Everyone, I will give a shot at Tunnelbear or windscribe VPN which are free. I'm using Chrome now and malwarebytes
and will try out Vivaldi, I have used Firefox and found it very slow
I'm not too sure about Panda dome which I have never use before

I have use Dr webcureit just for checking the pc with second opinion and not sure how effective it is. It seems to be able
to detect some malware which are not detected by others?

[Brice Manuel]

Great Thanks to you Brice, I just remember the infamous CCleaner that was distributed by Avast

If you are married to Chrome, you may want to look at Vivaldi. I like the people behind Vivaldi. I am not fond of Chrome myself, too slow and takes up too much memory on my system. Comodo Dragon used to be good, but I am not sure how often it is updated and I am not overly fond of Comodo for AV needs..

I prefer Firefox. Latest Firefox now offers easy use of Cloudflare's DNS as well as a new (to Firefox) paid VPN service (not sure I would use the VPN service until it has been tested a lot more). Personally, I would probably opt for Proton's VPN. Comodo used to have IceDragon which was their version of Firefox, again, not sure how often it is kept updated. Again, not overly fond of Comodo. Personally, I use Panda Dome for my AV needs with ClamWin & MalwareBytes as a backup.

Security stuff is such a personal choice. Just avoid Avast/AVG --they have both earned, and deserve, the reputation they have.

[Brice Manuel]

Great Thanks to you Brice, I just remember the infamous CCleaner that was distributed by Avast

The CCleaner debacle of 2017 is why I will not touch Avast/AVG (not that I used them before that). Being hacked is not what was bad, distributing hacked software for so long to major corporations was nothing short of criminal and industrial espionage and distributing it to government organizations was simply treasonous. Of course, this was not an isolated incident. We went through the same thing in December 2019 with CCleaner and this time it was fully hosted on Avast's own servers instead of the old Priform servers that were still being used in the 2017 fiasco.

Avast/AVG has always been an embarrassment to the industry for their false positives and bloated software, but their security issues with continually being hacked are nothing short of disgusting. How they remain in business is beyond me.

[Mike Doty]

Secure browser? A good VPN might be a better choice.

[Tim Lakinir]

Great Thanks to you Brice, I just remember the infamous CCleaner that was distributed by Avast

[Brice Manuel]

I would not let any product by Avast ever touch my computer.

[Tim Lakinir]

Hi All

I'm evaluating this Avast secure browser, can someone give your opinion or advice on this browser?
Thanks everyone