Rant: Filezilla effectively loaded Avast without asking.

[Chris Wilson]

I have used Filezilla for FTP for donkey's years, and it was pretty much the final app I loaded last night on a new PC. I realized it had a funny file name suggesting it was adware, but a read said you could deselect it loading additional software so I was very careful, but the option to deselect literally flashed on and off the screen far faster than any human could react to and it started loading Avast as a background task. To say I was livid was an understatement as I was building a minimalist system for a particular usage.



LUCKILY I had a system restore available from not too far back. Before doing this I looked in the registry and found a vast amount of .dat files associated with the install that allegedly call other downloads at unpredictable times. There are reams of posts from furious users about this online. I then found deeply buried an option to download a version of Filezilla on the manufacturers pages that allegedly doesn't load adware, but I was now not going to risk future updates doing naughty things and plumped for WinSCP instead. Is the none adware version still OK, or have they burnt their boats and people now avoid it?

 

[Chris Wilson]

I am not saying it downloaded malware or a virus, but what it did effectively do is download and install Avast, which is owned by the the same company as CClean and Filezilla, without a realistic chance of making the choice for it NOT to do this. I have chickened out and done an image restore using Macrium Reflect and spent a while reinstalling apps installed after the image was made. Google will show myriads of irate users who have suffered the same Avast install without time to deselect the "option".

This was the download site, the proper home pages:

https://filezilla-project.org/download.php

Much talk of this:

https://www.google.com/search?lr=&a...hUKEwj0jLW_yr7kAhVEQkEAHUU_Av0Q4dUDCAs&uact=5

 

[Chris Wilson]

Thanks, I have settled for WinSCP for now, left a nasty taste finding how they whizz it through, seems the company have a different user policy nowadays. Shame, it is an excellent FTP app...