site in real-time to ensure it's safe being opened. Concerns regarding web analytics have made LinkScanner a controversial component (see "LinkScanner concerns" below). LinkScanner concerns When AVG 8.0 was first released, its LinkScanner safe search feature was shown to cause an increase in traffic on websites that appear high in search engine results pages. Since LinkScanner disguises the scans as coming from an Internet Explorer 6 browser when it prescans each site listed in the search results, website usage logs showed incorrect and overinflated site visitor statistics. The prescanning of every link in search results also caused websites to transfer more data than usual, resulting in higher bandwidth usage for web site operators and slow performance for users. AVG initially said that site administrators would be able to filter the LinkScanner traffic out of their site statistics, leaving the problem of excess bandwidth usage still to be solved. Pay-per-click advertising was not affected by the increase in traffic. AVG Online Shield AVG Online Shield is a feature designed to check files and ensure that they are safe. AVG Online Shield also ensures the safety of exchanging files via instant messengers and VoIP clients. In response to complaints, AVG announced that as of 9 July 2008 "Search-Shield will no longer scan each search result online for new exploits, which was causing the spikes that webmasters addressed with us", releasing a new build on that date that applies a local blacklist, then prefetches and scans only those links clicked on by the user. Controversy As of 2014, there are numerous reports dating back to 2012 that the AVG SafeGuard Toolbar installs itself without the consent of the user, as a side effect of installing other applications. The toolbar program appears to cause significant RAM issues and can be considered an intrusive potentially unwanted program (PUP). Once installed, the AVG toolbar is virtually impossible to remove. The toolbar uninstaller does not function, instead re-installing the add-on if manually removed. Consequently, many discussions and blog posts have described complex procedures for removal of the AVG toolbar, each with very mixed results. In September 2015, AVG announced that it would start tracking users for profit, analyzing their data for sale to the advertising industry. This measure received criticism from consumers, the press and security industry, as many users intended to use the software in order to protect themselves from spyware and would not expect the