We’re excited to announce that we’ve upgraded our free browser extension with an expanded feature set and a new design to provide you with digital protection across all major browsers. Previously known as Avast Online Security, our Avast Online Security & Privacy (AOSP) software combines effective online protection with Avast’s latest Privacy Advisor, which provides you with automated contextual guidance to help optimize your privacy settings across popular sites.

AOSP is a convenient standalone starter pack for privacy protection and also complements Avast Free Antivirus or Avast One. AOSP provides effective anti-tracking, advertising opt-out and cloud-based phishing protection features to improve detection speeds. What’s more, AOSP makes it possible for you to control the data that you share online by making use of Global Privacy Control (GPC), an integrated service that automatically communicates your privacy preferences to any website you visit that’s also participating in the GPC initiative.

Further reading: How to reclaim your online privacy

“Our ambition is to ensure that everyone has effective protection for life online. With AOSP, we want to give people free digital protection without inconveniencing them by requesting changes to their preferences or browsing habits,” said Chandler Givens, Head of Consumer Privacy at Avast. “At the same time, we see an opportunity to meet the needs of people frustrated by the complexity of websites and social media privacy settings and configurations. Often, these options are buried deep or people are unsure where to look in order to change them. With the Privacy Advisor feature within AOSP, users are guided straight to important privacy settings on their favorite websites and offered simple guidance to protect their personal information.”

Boost your security and privacy with AOSP

AOSP comes with the following set of security and privacy features:

Privacy Advisor: Provides educational advice and simple, step-by-step instructions to adjust and improve your privacy settings on popular sites like Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Global Privacy Control: Allows you to configure your privacy preferences regarding the personal data that you share with websites participating in the GPC initiative. These preferences are automatically communicated to a website once it’s visited.

Advertising Opt-out: Allows you to opt out of all or specific advertisements automatically, without the need to send Data Subject Access Requests (DSAR), thereby preventing advertiser data collection.

Anti-Tracking: Prevents websites and advertisers from tracking your data and online behavior to build profiles and target you with personalized ads.

Safe Search: Provides you with safer search engine results by highlighting those that are malicious or safe with a red or green status icon.

Phishing Protection: Identifies and blocks phishing websites.

Avast Online Security & Privacy is compatible with Google Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera and Avast Secure Browser, and it’s available to download now.

For more information, visit the AOSP page on our website.