Avast, one of the leaders in anti-virus software, has been called out over its rather intrusive Avast SafePrice toolbar, after online tech magazine HowToGeek spotted the service sending back information about the user to its own servers.

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Avast SafePrice allows users to find the best deals online, but until last week Avast installed the service by default on the user's machine, a sneaky tactic other anti-virus software services take advantage of, like AVG Toolbar.

For the most part, the service looks to save you money by checking its own database for similar items at cheaper prices. Plenty of people use these types of services, it can save a lot of money in the long term and lets you find the stores with the best prices.

However, Avast has been taking the user privilege a bit too far, sending the URL of every website the user checks out back to their servers, along with a unique ID. Avast may say this lets SafePrice find better deals, but there is no information on how long that data is held on Avast's servers or what it is used for after the SafePrice analysis.

The big security scare at the moment concerns the NSA and other government spying agencies intercepting data and sending it back to their own servers - where it will be stored for an unknown time - to be used in case a citizen is investigated.

If Avast cannot give a good reason as to why they are sending data back to its servers, it might become harder for users to trust their anti-virus service. Anti-virus is starting to become less of an issue as people move to more secure encrypted mobiles, but on Windows PC it can still be a major problem.

Avast uses the quick installation process as a way to tag-on different services. This is common with Windows PC drivers, where you will accept newsletters and toolbars without even noticing. Avast did announce last week it would stop shipping SafePrice with the Avast anti-virus package.

TagsAvast, anti-virus, ad-ware, spying, safeprice