The aim of this paper is to provide a new estimator of parameters for LARCH$(\infty)$ processes, and thus also for LARCH$(p)$ or GLARCH$(p,q)$ processes. This estimator results from minimising a contrast leading to a least squares estimator for the absolute values of the process. Strong consistency and asymptotic normality are shown, and convergence occurs at the rate $\sqrt n$ as well in short or long memory cases. Numerical experiments confirm the theoretical results and show that this new estimator significantly outperforms the smoothed quasi-maximum likelihood estimators or weighted least squares estimators commonly used for such processes.