Scare-and-invoice business practices of some antivirus companies are slowing down your internet

    Internet security is important. This article is not meant to reduce the vigilance of users of electronic services – rather, it is meant to protect them from the practices of some companies that use the old, familiar business method of Scare and Invoice. What does this mean?

You have certainly noticed the reports about the scandal involving AVAST, whose subsidiary Jumpshot sold data about its users. Even as a lay reader, the data-selling scandal gives you a glimpse of how “free” products are paid for. Collected data serves as the only precise metric for increasing the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, it can reveal consumer behaviour, or even the interests of voters, for example. For some people this is no problem, but for many of us it is unthinkable that any outside entity could de-anonymise our movements across the online world.

Avast is AVG

The most popular free antivirus programs in the Czech Republic are in fact one product. In 2017, two companies, Avast and AVG, merged into one company, Avast Software. Today, in 2020, their products are identical, sold under different brands. Therefore, anything we write about the behaviour of the AVG product also applies to Avast, and vice versa.

Free antivirus

Antivirus programs belong on every computer. For some people, the built-in protection in the operating system they use is sufficient. The quality of Microsoft Defender is praised compared with the past, and a regularly updated computer should not have a problem with basic security. But – the added value of some products is worth considering before installing them. What does specialised software bring on top? For example, protection against ransomware, options for automatic system maintenance, cleaning of data storage, removal of duplicate files, updating of outdated drivers, and even the option to set up a VPN. That is why free programs exist at all: the manufacturer hopes that you will gradually buy paid features.

TIP: You will find a list of antivirus programs and download links on our page Protecting your computer? Prevention is priceless.

Scare tactics and AVAST's VPN sales

To increase the number of people willing to pay for added services, software makers use pop-up messages warning of various dangers. In effect, this is advertising, and at its root is the word deception. Mild deception could still be tolerated – but AVG's marketers have resorted to plain scaring of people even during ordinary operations. Connecting to a home network? AVG will display the message “This network is not secure” and offer to install the paid AVG Secure VPN add-on. Yet the software has no idea about the security of the network it has labelled as dangerous. Warnings about danger also appear when connecting to the internet, which is secured by the robust logic of Whalebone. User data sent to the central points of the network is routed securely. So what is the point? The operator forwarding data onwards to the internet only wants to know routing data, that is, the source and destination. To this metadata it adds the time at which the communication took place, and stores it for the legally prescribed six months. Or it blocks content by law – for example, it does not allow illegal gambling servers to be displayed. The operator's border router and DNS server also assign important security measures to the data flow. These can take the form of blocking communication towards fraudulent addresses. Fraudsters often change their target domains, which is why there are security databases to which various companies and security authorities send the internet addresses used by criminals. These are automatically loaded into the memory of the router, which does not allow data to be sent to them. This protects users on the network. All these complicated security measures can simply be taken out of operation – by using a VPN (Virtual Private Network).

VPN – what is it?

Update - you can find out more about VPNs on our page What is a VPN, why have one and what benefits does it bring. 

AVG Secure VPN is a pre-defined route between the user's device and a VPN server somewhere on the internet. It creates a virtual tunnel into the internet, so that from the point of view of other devices on the network, you look as if you were someone else – perhaps on another continent. Your provider merely connects your device to the VPN server. At that moment it loses the ability to influence the routing of the service and to apply security rules, because this function is taken over by the foreign network hosting the VPN service. What is more, it is unable to influence the capacity of the connection, latency or other parameters of the service. Even if the connection is made from a home network, it will always have only the quality for which the AVG-operated VPN server is built. AVG Secure VPN offers automatic connection to a preset server. Users can change the country and continent where another VPN server is located. And that is the problem. Connectivity on the network is not free for anyone; running the world's data network costs something…

How does a VPN affect connection parameters?

We carried out several measurements on a wireless connection with a capacity of 40/40 Mbps. Without the AVG Secure line product, we measured the full capacity of the line. The ping and jitter parameters represent latency and delay variation. With the same configuration, we measured with the AVG VPN switched on, and the results showed half the download capacity. The upload figure surprised me: we slowed the line down to a quarter of its data capacity. Ping and jitter were at values at which you would no longer want to play games. The VPN was connected to a server located in Prague. It is evident that AVG's VPN server did not have sufficient capacity at the moment of measurement to handle the requests of all users without restricting the quality of their connections – and we are talking about a home line of 40 Mbps on a wireless network! Colleagues at partner companies record dozens of complaints about speed on fibre networks, because limits imposed by a weak VPN server “slash” very fast connections down to below-average service. The terms and conditions of VPN service providers guarantee no quality whatsoever. Diagnosis is difficult. A VPN tunnel is hard for the operator to identify. A technician testing the network does not see the problem; he measures the full ordered data throughput of the line. The creator of the software VPN did not count on the need for diagnostics and does not promote its VPN service in the list of services in Windows. That is why even technical support often fails to find the cause, and trial and error rules out possible causes in the customer's network. There was one recorded case in which a customer switched off the VPN connection they had set up, yet the software still “forced” the use of a remote server. Funny, if we accept that this is how viruses behave…

Automatic start of VPN services and network devices

When a computer starts, software components do not always activate in the same order. It depends on many influences, and it is mostly irrelevant which add-on module starts up when. The important component is the network connections, through which the system feels out the devices on the available network. A network printer, a NAS server with data, or a wireless monitor, for example, report themselves to it. This is possible only if the devices are on the same network, within the available range of IP addresses. If the VPN server connection is established before such loading, an IP address belonging to the VPN tunnel is set on the network card, and naturally it sees no network devices. As the classic saying goes: do you have a printer at home? And could I see it? Well then, switch off your VPN.

In conclusion

Public VPN services are sometimes useful. They do not replace the original purpose of a VPN, namely connecting your remote networks so that you can work fully from any location – but they offer additional protection, for example on public hotspots. A pleasant feature is the option to “cheat” and appear to be located in the United States, for example. A lot of content is blocked based on geolocation. You will not get to American Netflix from the Czech Republic. And if you want to, a commercial VPN will make it possible. On a business trip to China, a VPN is essential, although it carries a risk of penalties. A VPN makes it possible to bypass information embargoes. All of these are reasons why users set up a VPN service. The vast majority of users have no such need. So why let yourself be frightened by advertising and degrade the quality of your computer's connection?

Updated 13 March 2024