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gwalk
Premium Member
join:2005-07-27
West Mich.

gwalk

Premium Member

What is the latest on Avast ?

Presently running 7.0.1426. Updater has been bugging about going to the latest and greatest 7.0.1456

Anyone know if they are still pushing the "emergency updater" in this version ?
art22gg
Premium Member
join:2005-02-16
Courtenay, BC

art22gg

Premium Member

Yes,it is there...

gwalk
Premium Member
join:2005-07-27
West Mich.

gwalk

Premium Member

Is it troublesome ? Time to look for another anti-virus program ?

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5 to gwalk

Premium Member

to gwalk
Avast is going public with an IPO stock offering:

Name of issuer
AVAST Software BV

Industry 
Technology - Software

Security type
Common Stock

Expected size of offering
9,000,000 Shares
Expected price range     
$9.00 - $11.00 per share

Offering type
Initial Public Offering

Expected pricing date
07/25/2012
Indication of Interest Period
07/13/2012 to 07/24/2012 by (4pm EST)
         
I wonder what changing in to a public corporation means for their currently free products?
scross
join:2002-09-13
USA

scross

Member

I might be equally concerned about the QUALITY of their products, free or otherwise. If the people who are currently there cash out and hit the road, or if the company ends up being bought up or otherwise controlled by someone else in the industry (and I'm not even going to mention PE), then all bets are off.

newview
Ex .. Ex .. Exactly
Premium Member
join:2001-10-01
Parsonsburg, MD

newview to gwalk

Premium Member

to gwalk
Be aware ... Avast is sometimes installing Google Chrome without permission. You have to babysit the upgrade to uncheck the radio buttons to decline the installation.

Don't hit upgrade and walk away, you'll end up with Google Chrome as your new default browser. And if you already have Google Chrome ... it totally borks your profile.

Avast is blaming it on the user ... of course.

»forum.avast.com/index.ph ··· 100380.0

jadinolf
I love you Fred
Premium Member
join:2005-07-09
Ojai, CA

jadinolf to gwalk

Premium Member

to gwalk
I have the latest version, AIS 7.0.1456 on 5 computers with absolutely no problems.

Also, I don't buy that installing Chrome thing but I will not dignify it by arguing that point.

sbconslt
join:2009-07-28
Los Angeles, CA

1 recommendation

sbconslt

Member

I saw the Google Chrome checkboxes in the course of applying the recent engine upgrade. It was not at all hard to uncheck them, of course, but they did bury them in a nonstandard place, in a very busy dialog, that you could easily miss if you weren't careful. I understand they have to make a living but the deliberate design choice to rig people into overlooking it is questionable and borders on willful deception. There's enough trickery and fraud in the world without security software vendors who answer to an implicit higher standard going out of their way to add to it.

DataDoc
My avatar looks like me, if I was 2D.
Premium Member
join:2000-05-14
Hedgesville, WV
·StarLink
·HughesNet

DataDoc to jadinolf

Premium Member

to jadinolf
said by jadinolf:

I have the latest version, AIS 7.0.1456 on 5 computers with absolutely no problems.

Also, I don't buy that installing Chrome thing but I will not dignify it by arguing that point.

I've not had it install Chrome, but it wants to, every time I want more info on one of its popups. I refuse and then it won't connect to wherever it was headed.
scross
join:2002-09-13
USA

scross to newview

Member

to newview
Actually, thanks for mentioning this, because it probably solves a mystery at my house. I did the Avast update to five machines yesterday. On four of them, it was quick and painless, but on the fifth (which happens to be my daughter's machine), it popped up a different screen at one point which I didn't catch, then it went into a "This make take a while" screen, and it sat there mindlessly for several minutes. Then this morning my daughter came in and told me that her Chrome installation had been completely blown away and overlaid with a new one, and that all of her settings and history and such were gone. So apparently Avast is the culprit here. If so, then odds are they will be going away soon at my house!

gwalk
Premium Member
join:2005-07-27
West Mich.

gwalk

Premium Member

Thanks for the Chrome reminder. I've always unchecked the boxes during previous upgrades.

fatness
subtle

join:2000-11-17
fishing

fatness to gwalk

to gwalk
I'm using 7.0.1456 on multiple machines. From what I can tell the emergency updater runs once or twice a day, and is not constantly running. The only problem I had upgrading to the new version is that it reset some things in the shields control settings when it installed.
Hotch
join:2012-06-12

Hotch to gwalk

Member

to gwalk
I realize that the Avast issue being discussed is regarding the Windows OS.

I have both a PC and a Mac. I don't use Avast on the PC. I prefer other combos of security. Years ago I used it on the PC and at that time found it be an excellent product.

However, if it is of any value to someone Avast's new antimalware program for OS X is IMO awesome in every way.
scross
join:2002-09-13
USA

scross

Member

Well, up until this point I've thought they were pretty awesome, too (Avast has saved my butt many times now). But if they've jumped the shark then they've jumped the shark. And the whole IPO thing probably explains why.

sbconslt
join:2009-07-28
Los Angeles, CA

sbconslt

Member

The issue of the Chrome checkboxes in the installer put aside, it's a decent enough antivirus. I have no issues I can think of besides the very infrequent false positive.

gwalk
Premium Member
join:2005-07-27
West Mich.

gwalk

Premium Member

Well, I installed it (7.0.1456) on my laptop. Not finding anything in Task Scheduler but boot up time increased a lot.
I'll give a try for a few days but after many years Avast may have to go.
Then there is the IPO thing.
Hotch
join:2012-06-12

Hotch to gwalk

Member

to gwalk
Regarding both free and paid versions of myriad of AV or antimalware programs lets be realistic. There have many that for X amount of years or time get deserved rave reviews but most of them after X amount of time backslide quite a bit. However, many of those same backsliders than after a year or two in the dumps turn around and reinvent themselves to be excellent products.

Also in the free market there have all ways been multiple choices of good products. So what of substance is there to complain about there? You don't like one or you do but later change your mind you can easily switch to another excellent free product.

For a fee or paid subscription program more often than not there are head's up information on their performance by rating or evaluators like AV Comparatives to name one.

Sure one can stuck with a lemon especially if they renew a paid version and the new and improved isn't. But isn't that the minority and when you look at the total picture over time it seems for the majority of users they have it pretty good in both choices and price options.

gwalk
Premium Member
join:2005-07-27
West Mich.

gwalk

Premium Member

I have to agree with you, take Norton for example. Their customer service left such a bad impression that I wouldn't have it on my machines if they paid me.
scross
join:2002-09-13
USA

scross to Hotch

Member

to Hotch
"So what of substance is there to complain about there?" Well, behavior exactly like what has been described, for one (unwanted drive-by installs). And upgrades that break things or just cause the machine to go into a death spiral (I recently dumped Adaware because of this). And false positives that are blamed on other products, not their own, so they insist that you must uninstall those other products. And so on and so forth.

For any company that provides these products as teasers for their other, paid products (which they almost all do), intentionally unfriendly behavior like this is detrimental to their future bottom line. And it is to be condemned, not defended!
Hotch
join:2012-06-12

1 recommendation

Hotch

Member

The only part of my post that you quote is on sentence in the middle of a paragraph and your use of the quote is way out of context both within the paragraph and also the whole post.

The one sentence of mine that you quote
said by scross:

"So what of substance is there to complain about there?"

What did I say in context?
quote:

Also in the free market there have all ways been multiple choices of good products. So what of substance is there to complain about there? You don't like one or you do but later change your mind you can easily switch to another excellent free product.

For a fee or paid subscription program more often than not there are head's up information on their performance by rating or evaluators like AV Comparatives to name one.


scross
join:2002-09-13
USA

1 edit

scross to gwalk

Member

to gwalk
Let me rephrase without quoting or context: "If you don't like it then you can always just take your business elsewhere!" is generally a piss-poor attitude to have or to defend in others. And when everyone in the "business" starts pulling the same BS (often because they see others doing it and appearing to get away with it), then you usually end up with no really viable choices at all.

Avast had three chances with me; two are already gone. One more strike and they're out of here, and I will telling my friends (who often depend on me for recommendations about AV products) all about it!

PS: My apologies if you weren't actually defending Avast's behavior here, or calling it a non-issue.

gwalk
Premium Member
join:2005-07-27
West Mich.

gwalk

Premium Member

I found 7.0.1456 to be just too troublesome.
It caused extremely slow boot up and insisted on sand-boxing a network monitoring program despite it being excluded.

Reinstalled 7.0.1426 and all is well