Avast WEBforum
Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: ManyQs on May 24, 2013, 02:50:04 PM
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I allowed my Avast Free to expire on May 13th, but wasn't quite finished with Avast related matters and simply allowed it to remain in that expired state and receiving the constant popups warning it was expired (I didn't mind) and had MSE put into realtime mode and just a few moments ago I turned that computer back on after it was off for about an hour, it booted up a bit strangely and suddenly I see the little dark blue popup "avast! Information" which states "An update to your version ..." and I am now looking at a screenshot that I grabbed that indicates the expiration date is 8/22/2013 1:31:50 AM.
Can anyone explain this, please?
I am especially interested in where the documentation is that explains that an expired program can be automatically renewed.
Thank you.
EDIT: I am trying to again put that question mark where I seemed to have missed the first time. "Again" because I thought I had done that edit already.
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Having waited for over 12 hours for a response and seeing nothing I begin to get very nervous.
Nobody from Avast's technical department knows about this?
Or it is so rare that Avast staff is hesitant to respond?
Or somebody has gone to great lenghts to highjack the Avast program on my computer that ...
That last one just couldn't be possible, could it?
But somebody might begin to understand why this is beginning to make me nervous, no?
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It is very difficult for me to understand why this thread/issue hasn't received any response from an Avast Team member, or other employee.
We know that a member of the volunteer group has noted my presence on the board as he couldn't resist taking a cheap shot at me, but I suspect this is not an issue for the volunteer staff to deal with.
This is an issue that will have to be addressed by the company. That is, a company employee. Given the significance of the possible threat to former customers of the company it will likely be one or more executives that will need to focus some attention on this. In fact, it is the 'former customer' aspect that makes the situation even more delicate. But that should remain a side issue. When you have a situation where the health of a person's computer is put at risk because of a policy of a given company that company will eventually be called to task.
Search engine results don't show any results for this issue, and that might bode well for the company. But it's happened at least once, me, so it might have happened before and might happen again. I was lucky because I pay attention to detail, if we can label that luck
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To be honest, the 12 month expiry is just an arbitrary thing, since the you're using Avast! free.
It's not as if you have to pay for a new license or anything like that.
I'm just a user like you, but you have to imagine that avast built this contingency into the product
to avoid losing you as a customer...
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So what your saying is now you have 2 real time antiviruses? Do you know that's a huge mistake. Avast Free is FREE..............It never expires. Avast just has you register so they can get an estimate of how many users are using Avast. Dont like it uninstall it. Its that easy.
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To be honest, the 12 month expiry is just an arbitrary thing, since the you're using Avast! free.
It's not as if you have to pay for a new license or anything like that.
I'm just a user like you, but you have to imagine that avast built this contingency into the product
to avoid losing you as a customer...
You seem to have missed the point. And that is the reason I asked about documentation in the OP.
If an expired product is not actually in a permanent state of hibernation/inactiveness, then a warning absolutely must be provided that what happened to me can indeed happen.
The significance of that warning is found within a warning that has been frequently posted on this board for many years. You do see where I'm coming from, yes?
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Perhaps I did miss the point. As far as I'm aware, the product "expires" after a year,
and you have to "renew" (re-register) to get another years use. End of the drama.
I've never seen your issue mentioned on this board ever before. I just assumed if the user
receives a notification that the product has expired, they either re-register or they uninstall
and try something else.
I've tried parsing your posts, and you seem to be alluding to something nefarious,
but it's not clear to me why this scenario has bothered you so much.
If you get an answer from avast themselves, please update the board so we may better
understand the situation.
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Oh dear, those big, fancy words -- nefa something -- those just confuse a simple, country boy like me. Well, maybe not quite a 'boy' anymore.
Anyway, the issue is this. I think the product is off after I receive the notice it has expired and I am no longer protected. I think the product is finished. Not to be worried about. I don't see any warning that I must uninstall the product. I leave it as is, but am receiving that neat popup every time I turn on the unit and sometimes during a long session. I don't mind that popup. Again, no warnings that something may happen like the product may suddenly come back to life. In the meantime I have enabled MSE. Now I again point out that I think the Avast product is not a factor here. So suddenly one day the Avast product is turned back on with no warning and presto -- I have two realtime anti-virus products running at the same time. I'm not referring to Windows Defender, now. That, I understand, gets auto turned off when Avast comes on line. Not MSE.
So let us say that my system crashes because those two anti-virus products are running. Whose fault is that? Am I honestly expected to know that Avast might turn an expired product back on? I don't think so.
And with that possibility that my system could be damaged I strongly contend that Avast should have provided a warning that I was at risk.
That was about 10 days of receiving the red popup that my product had expired and for 19.99 at 60% off I could get Avast Pro, or just renew the Avast free and at no time did I receive a warning that a possible conflict was right around the corner.
NOW, if I have a very unusual situation that should not have happened, it would have been courteous of some staff member to have already informed me of that. Since I posted the OP there have been a number of Avast Team members on this board. But do we yet see a response from them? An admin was on a short time ago and still nothing. I don't think that's very nice.
Volunteer staff here can use their backroom forum to notify Avast Team members, but it seems that they'd rather not. Given that the backroom language about me has been quite foul I am not surprised about that. But it sure isn't very professional. There's no doubt there's an issue here that needs looking into. And my having to spell it out like this to have someone realize the problem doesn't speak well for staff here.
So I'll ask a staff member again -- what happened on my computer vis-à-vis the Avast product?
And thank you, davexnet, for asking about this so I have a chance to explain. Maybe you could be an asset to this company in a volunteer role. They need some fresh blood.
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I see no point to this thread except for spamming attention.
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I see no point to this thread except for spamming attention.
So you think the warning oft repeated that running two realtime anti-virus programs is dangerous is nonsense, yes?
That puts in a minority on this board.
And I think it's very impolite for you to be calling me a spammer. But maybe that's just your style and we have to put up with that. No problem. Carry on. Have fun.
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Notice how no one from the Avast team has responded..................That is cause no one cares. If your real time antivirus is expiring its up to the user to renew it or remove it. No antivirus in the world uninstalls itself after expiring. Thats common sense. So you thought that once Avast expired it will automatically remove itself? If you thought that then you better go get a better understanding of computers rather then making nonsense threads such as this. Thanks. Have a nice day.
FYI........I had a customer with AVG Free 2013 installing. She had malware on her pc so she installed Norton on top of it. If that AVG's fault? No. Is it Symantec's fault? No. Its the user behind the mouse clicking's fault.
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My goodness, you are having some problems reading. I did not write that I thought it would uninstall itself.
Let's see, what did I write that relates to that part of your post?
Okey-dokey, looks like it's best for me to just copy/paste that entire paragraph. That'll make it a bit easier for you.
Anyway, the issue is this. I think the product is off after I receive the notice it has expired and I am no longer protected. I think the product is finished. Not to be worried about. I don't see any warning that I must uninstall the product. I leave it as is, but am receiving that neat popup every time I turn on the unit and sometimes during a long session. I don't mind that popup. Again, no warnings that something may happen like the product may suddenly come back to life. In the meantime I have enabled MSE. Now I again point out that I think the Avast product is not a factor here. So suddenly one day the Avast product is turned back on with no warning and presto -- I have two realtime anti-virus products running at the same time. I'm not referring to Windows Defender, now. That, I understand, gets auto turned off when Avast comes on line. Not MSE.
Nope! Not a thing in that paragraph about it uninstalling itself. In fact, you'll read that I didn't mind the popups stating it had expired and please buy this or do that. Didn't mind that at all. Sure isn't uninstalled if those neat popups are popping up like Christmas time in December -- lots of red in that popup, you know?
Oh yes, and have you ever read about an expired product -- expired for ten days -- that expired product getting turned back on by the company that sells or distributes the product? Ever read anything like that? You could help out here, if you wanted to, you know?
Anyway, hope my attempt at clarification helps you out. Be careful how your read things, okay? Take care.
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I read what you wrote clear as day. You honestly think that Avast should have told you to "uninstall". Lol. Like I said that's common sense. So you enabled MSE. Mistake again. If you simple enabled it that means you never uninstalled it before installing Avast. Again common sense. Your thread is pointless and meaningless. Hence the reason that no one from the Avast team has responded.
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Oh my, you are a funny one.
Well, thank you for your opinion.
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So I'm trying to get a handle on the timestamp showing in my renewed / unexpired program UI and decide to take a look at some of the logs and see I have some rather specific timestamps as to when the program stopped and when it started back up. I think, though, the timestamp in my UI has changed (I mean the time zone setting, GMT/JST,etc.), which was why I started this latest bit of studying. And I have the time to do the studying.
Anyway, a few copies for anyone that might have thought I have been trying to pull a fast one and that I concocted all this. Of course, I'd have to download the entire files and do screenshots and all that if anyone wants to accuse me of doctoring those files. Will that be necessary?
Oh well, ...
usntr.log
5/13/2013 4:06:25 PM Processing file C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Low\Content.IE5\KNXBOFVY\jquery.tn3.min[1].js...
5/13/2013 4:06:25 PM --> Finished
5/13/2013 4:08:15 PM Processing file C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Recovery\Last Active\RecoveryStore.{XXX REMOVED THIS XXX}.dat...
5/13/2013 4:08:15 PM --> Finished
5/13/2013 4:34:35 PM Processing file C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Low\Content.IE5\2J8J0M7Z\skeleton[1].js...
5/13/2013 4:34:35 PM --> Finished [2] [processing took 0 ms].
5/13/2013 4:34:35 PM Processing file C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Low\Content.IE5\KDXZFLF1\vce_st[2].js...
5/13/2013 4:34:35 PM --> Finished
5/13/2013 4:37:15 PM Processing file C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Recovery\Last Active\RecoveryStore.{XXX REMOVED THIS XXX}.dat...
5/13/2013 4:37:15 PM --> Finished 5/24/2013 6:51:41 PM Processing file C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe...
5/24/2013 6:51:41 PM --> Finished
5/24/2013 6:51:42 PM Processing file C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEShims.dll...
5/24/2013 6:51:42 PM --> Finished
5/24/2013 6:51:47 PM Processing file C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash\FlashUtil32_11_7_700_202_ActiveX.exe...
5/24/2013 6:51:47 PM --> Finished
5/24/2013 7:51:02 PM Processing file C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Recovery\Last Active\RecoveryStore.{XXX REMOVED THIS XXX}.dat...
5/24/2013 7:51:02 PM --> Finished
5/24/2013 9:18:07 PM Processing file C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Adobe Reader 9.lnk...
5/24/2013 9:18:08 PM --> Finished
5/24/2013 9:18:13 PM Processing file C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader\reader_sl.exe...
5/24/2013 9:18:13 PM --> Finished
5/24/2013 9:18:18 PM Processing file C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\ARM\1.0\AdobeARM.exe...
5/24/2013 9:18:18 PM --> Finished
*****************************************************************
This is from the mail.log
5/13/2013 1:23:15 PM 00000710: SMTP Start: 1
5/13/2013 1:23:15 PM 00000710: SMTP RedirectPort: 25,587
5/13/2013 1:23:15 PM 00000710: IMAP Start: 1
5/13/2013 1:23:15 PM 00000710: IMAP RedirectPort: 143
5/13/2013 1:23:15 PM 00000710: NNTP Start: 1
5/13/2013 1:23:15 PM 00000710: NNTP RedirectPort: 119
5/13/2013 1:23:15 PM 00000710: POPs Start: 1
5/13/2013 1:23:15 PM 00000710: POPs RedirectPort: 995
5/13/2013 1:23:15 PM 00000710: SMTPs Start: 1
5/13/2013 1:23:15 PM 00000710: SMTPs RedirectPort: 465
5/13/2013 1:23:15 PM 00000710: IMAPs Start: 1
5/13/2013 1:23:15 PM 00000710: IMAPs RedirectPort: 993
5/13/2013 1:23:15 PM 00000710: NNTPs Start: 1
5/13/2013 1:23:15 PM 00000710: NNTPs RedirectPort: 563
5/24/2013 1:49:27 PM 0000114C: Started, Log = 1
5/24/2013 1:49:27 PM 0000114C: Build 7.0.1466
5/24/2013 1:49:27 PM 0000114C: OS Windows Vista Workstation (Service Pack 2)
5/24/2013 1:49:27 PM 0000114C: PopListen 127.0.0.1 12110
5/24/2013 1:49:27 PM 0000114C: SmtpListen 127.0.0.1 12025
5/24/2013 1:49:27 PM 0000114C: ImapListen 127.0.0.1 12143
5/24/2013 1:49:27 PM 0000114C: NntpListen 127.0.0.1 12119
5/24/2013 1:49:27 PM 0000114C: PopListenSSL 127.0.0.1 12995
5/24/2013 1:49:27 PM 0000114C: SmtpListenSSL 127.0.0.1 12465
5/24/2013 1:49:27 PM 0000114C: ImapListenSSL 127.0.0.1 12993
5/24/2013 1:49:27 PM 0000114C: NntpListenSSL 127.0.0.1 12563
5/24/2013 1:49:27 PM 0000114C: AutoRedirect 1
5/24/2013 1:49:27 PM 0000114C: IgnoreLocalhost 1
***************************************************************
Then there are the various bla-blaShield .txt, but here is the stop/start of the FileSystemShield,
* avast! Real-time Shield Scan Report
* This file is generated automatically
*
* Started on: Monday, May 13, 2013 1:23:15 PM
*
*
* avast! Real-time Shield Scan Report
* This file is generated automatically
*
* Started on: Friday, May 24, 2013 1:49:27 PM
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
By the way, if anyone thinks there's a security risk in my putting those up there please inform me pronto and I'll remove what you see as a risk. Thank you.
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Again your point is?
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His point is that, if avast expired, how come after 11 days the license gets renewed for more 30 extra days.
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Avast did not expire. His registration did. He is using the Avast FREE edition. He is also using two real time antivirus programs which is a mistake. Just cause one is disabled it is still there. Drivers and all. Still there is no purpose of his test or post except to spam the forum. Avast informed him that his subscription was expiring. The actually program does not expire. Just like if you bought Norton for 1 year. After 1 year your subscription to get updates expires but the program is still there. That is common sense.
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Yes I know, I was using license/registration expiration and program expiration as synonyms.
According to his logs the real time shields stopped working after his license expired.
And yes, it is not recommended to have 2 AV programs because the drivers can conflict, even if the real time protection is disable. But the problem here is that, the extra 30 days shouldn't have happened, since it is not a documented thing. I think it is totally legitimate from him to ask what is going on.
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I see no point to this thread except for spamming attention.
::) ::) ::)
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I apologize everyone that my English isn't quite up to par and some of you aren't understanding what happened.
Let me clear up a little misunderstanding, please.
MSE was not put into realtime status until Avast had expired.
I was/am thinking that when Avast is listed as expired it is no longer active, and that gap shown in the logs seems to back up/support that claim.
So I had MSE in an active mode (after Avast expired) and I had no warning that Avast is going to go active and that's when I am suddenly running two active anti-virus programs.
And to reiterate a related point, I did not activate Avast.
That can only mean that I was not responsible for two active anti-virus programs running at the same time on this unit.
Are there any questions about the timing of the events outlined above?
Thank you.
Oh yes, I should apologize if that explanation above comes across as a little sarcastic. This whole mess hasn't set well with me and ... Well, I'll leave it at that -- my apologies
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I would now like to ask a question on a related matter, and posted above by a couple of you good folks.
Where exactly can be found the research/testing and published results that having an expired anti-virus program is going to interfere with an active anti-virus program? Documentation, please, is what I am asking for on that testing. Not opinion, thank you.
EDIT: I have found an article that seems to indicate an inactive program is not a problem. Seems, in addition, that we have two individuals stating this in the one article. Well, Brandon Gregg is cited.
http://lifehacker.com/5898756/why-you-shoulder-consider-using-more-than-one-antivirus-app (http://lifehacker.com/5898756/why-you-shoulder-consider-using-more-than-one-antivirus-app)
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And, if you don't mind, please stop accusing me of spamming and please cut with the "it's common sense" statements. I'd ask you -- you know who you are -- I'd ask you to be more polite, but that just doesn't seem to be your style, so I'll be more specific with my requests. Thank you.
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You are directly responsible for your own pc. Before you installed Avast you should have uninstalled MSE. Disabling it is not enough cause it's drivers are still present. Again notice how no Avast employee has responded. Cause there is no point to your post. You let your subscription expire. After that you should have either registerd it or uninstalled it. The fact that you did nothing is directly your fault and no one else's. So when your gallon of milk has expired and you do nothing with it except leave it in the fridge. Two weeks later you drink it and spit it out cause it's horrible. Do you go back to the grocery store and blame them? No cause they did there job by having an expiration date on it. Just like Avast.
Thread closed. No further action needed.
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You are directly responsible for your own pc. Before you installed Avast you should have uninstalled MSE. Disabling it is not enough cause it's drivers are still present. Again notice how no Avast employee has responded. Cause there is no point to your post. You let your subscription expire. After that you should have either registerd it or uninstalled it. The fact that you did nothing is directly your fault and no one else's. So when your gallon of milk has expired and you do nothing with it except leave it in the fridge. Two weeks later you drink it and spit it out cause it's horrible. Do you go back to the grocery store and blame them? No cause they did there job by having an expiration date on it. Just like Avast.
Thread closed. No further action needed.
Before I found out one shouldn't have two AV programs installed on a computer I had both Avast and MSE. Didn't really have any problems with my PC but I did uninstall MSE.
"Thread closed. No further action needed?" Wow!
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Okey-dokey, I've got a little problem and need to backtrack a bit here.
Some of the local folks around me here that have been keeping abreast of this affair have pointed out to me that I made a mistake earlier.
They are stating that while my idea might be correct that the volunteer staff probably would not know the how or why of what happened, they certainly should be able to answer in another area that is also of importance.
They point out that the volunteer staff should, and probably do, know the documentation inside and out like nobody else on the site, so I should be addressing some questions to them.
I agree. I made a mistake.
So I have two questions, please.
*1* Does the Avast product documentation explicitly advise a customer to uninstall an expired product, if the customer does not intend to reactivate the product?
*2* Does the Avast product documentation explicitly warn customers that even an inactive anti-virus product installed on a computer containing an active Avast anti-virus product is a danger?
Thank you.
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Basic pc knowledge my friend. If you are asking this of Avast then you might wanna go ahead and ask Symantec, Kaspersky, Avira, Panda and McAfee the same question. When ANY type of software is expired and you know longer want to use it then it is soully up to you to remove it. Why keep it if you no longer wish to use it. Just like downloading a 30 day trial. After the 30 days expire either you pay for it or uninstall it. If something has expired it is up to you to remove it. Plan as day. Clear as day.
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You wanted documentation
http://www.avast.com/faq.php?article=AVKB11#
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Thank you, craigb. That relates to Q2.
Any idea about Q1?
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I believe it covers all questions asked if not as descriptive as you would like it.
Even if a product has expired or been disabled it should still be removed from the system, there will still be low level drivers that can interfere.
Another question which should be asked to you is why in the world would you want to keep an expired AV anyway ??? it's useless, best off removed as it's not worth the risk.
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I figured somebody was going to ask that question, eventually.
I think you will recall that I stated last year I had to leave Avast. No need to go back into why. So I have allowed the licenses to expire on the other units one-by-one and on the Epson I noticed there was a kind of survey about why I was leaving or something like that and I thought that was fair enough and was going from page to page of the questions and then hit one page after stating on the previous that I would get another product and that next page asked me how much I was going to pay -- multiple choice, if I remember correctly. At that time I thought that was a bit intrusive and just closed the survey. Then we got to talking about it here and one of my folks said I should have been doing screenshots and gone ahead and finished it, so I was planning on doing just that with this Dell, but never had the time. Then presto, come back from dinner one day, fire up the computer to go back to work and see I have a reactivated product. Heck, it had only been about 10 or 11 days since it had expired. Can't be that is too long. Anyway, that answers your question, I think.
Now, about question one, I understand you are stating the answer is on that same page you provided the link for, yes?
And if you read that page very carefully it explicitly states that running two anti-virus programs at the same time is what is bad, and the reason given for uninstalling a third-party anti-virus program is to enable Avast to properly install. That page does not specifically address the issue of if being a danger for one product to be inactive while Avast is active. At least, I didn't see it. Of course, we're going to pick that wording apart, but I didn't see it and there's not a lot to read.
Anyway, I do appreciate that you provided the link to that page. I haven't had as much time as I would've liked to study and search for pages like that. If you think of anything else, don't hesitate to let me know, please. But I wish to repeat that I am looking for specifics -- black and white -- clearly spelled out warnings and such. That's the way this business works. A company has to properly document certain things and this is an area where it is necessary. But they know that. Those lawyer folks gets tonnes of money to get it right and to see around corners.
But we still need to find out why this happened.
And there is another really big problem. It's lucky I'm not so ... well, I don't know the right vocabulary, but I don't wish to cause problems for Avast. But you see, Avast reactivated the product, but did not ask me to sign a new ToS or User Agreement. The original one was for the license for one year and the view around here is that when that product expired that ended that agreement. Company law departments are usually very, very careful about such things. I'd say they missed this time.
But as long as the tech people clearly understand why and how this happened I don't mind signing the same agreement as before. You see the reason for the why and how? It's rather important for me and the company. I want to know this isn't some freak accident that may cause me problems and Avast probably would like me to sign that new agreement.
This is a lot more complicated than I suspect some folks at first realized, but lessons can be learned, and everything can be figured out, I'm sure. Just need some answers, that's all. A little checking here. A little checking there. And everyone will go home happy. And you're helping. Again, thank you.
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EDITING was for all the stupid spelling mistakes, that's all. Not substantive context changing.
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Nothing complicated. Making mountains out of mole hills. Its expires either keep it or remove it. Have you ever installed trial software? I am sure you have. We all have. Once the trial has expired you either pay for it or remove it. Same concept. There is no problem here.
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I don't know why your avast software re-registered, whether avast does it as an offer or it's a bug who knows ??? but the fact of the matter is it wouldn't have happened if you removed the program once it expired if you weren't willing to re-register directly.
Avast might not state anywhere in writing that you should uninstall when finished with the product as I believe that should be just common sense and users are responsible for there own computer and any software they install theron.
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I don't know why your avast software re-registered, whether avast does it as an offer or it's a bug who knows ??? but the fact of the matter is it wouldn't have happened if you removed the program once it expired if you weren't willing to re-register directly.
Avast might not state anywhere in writing that you should uninstall when finished with the product as I believe that should be just common sense and users are responsible for there own computer and any software they install theron.
Thank you. Exactly what I have been saying all along.
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I would hope that a bug like that would be of interest to their tech department.
As for my not having removed the expired product it is my choice unless I agree to the company's request to do so. I had a valid reason not to do so and I haven't yet seen anything that states I was required to do so. I have also yet to see the test/research paper that could be the rationale for the claim that an inactive anti-virus product can interfere with an active one. I see Avast stating an inactive virus program can cause installation problems for their product, but I haven't seen the print that specifically states that an inactive product causes problems for an active one. And I have seen writings from people that are supposed to know about this business that state that, in fact, an inactive anti-virus program does not cause problems for the active one.
BUT the matter that most concerns me right now is why that product was reactivated. No matter the fact that I had not removed it. That is not an issue, as I did not agree to do that. And I haven't found anything that stated they might reactivate it after a certain number of days.
Oh well, we'll get to the bottom of this, for sure. And I appreciate your help and input, craigb. What we need is the tech folks to look into this. That's a must. Obviously.
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You CANNOT at ANYTIME have TWO antivirus programs installed. Its basic common knowledge. There is no getting to the bottom line. The problem was caused by you. Not Avast.
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Okay, so I have a record here indicating that Avast Team member Milos spent a fair bit of time last night (about a quarter past 7pm) UTC reading this thread and we are now about halfway through the business day in the Czech Republic, so is it safe to assume the Avast Team will be informing me/us of what they have found out?
I mean, the key point of this thread is why this happened. How does an expired Avast account — expired at the conclusion of a one-year contract — how is it that that expired account came back to life?
Simple question. Easy to understand question. Maybe the answer won't be so easy, but now that there's documentation that an Avast Team member is aware of the question being on the table, so to speak, isn't it safe to assume that courtesy requires this company answer the question or inform me they are looking for the answer? Just basic courtesy, that's all. I'm not so sure this should have dragged out for as long as it has, but still ...
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Don't know where you got your stats of the time spent viewing this topic or how accurate that timing might be. But Milos is in the virus labs team so I rather doubt he has an in depth knowledge of this area.
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Don't know where you got your stats of the time spent viewing this topic or how accurate that timing might be. But Milos is in the virus labs team so I rather doubt he has an in depth knowledge of this area.
I appreciate the feedback, DavidR. Appreciate, too, that Milos might not be within his field of expertise when he reads about a particular problem a customer posts about, but I would hope that these engineers help each other out once in a while when it concerns customer service. One sees something that needs attention and a quick message to the appropriate section and you have good customer service. Online customer service, I should add.
In fact, DavidR, you were involved in what I think should be viewed as the yardstick for all customer support services wordwide. And especially here, as this is where it happened.
December 22, 2012, 03:33:33 PM - The OP
December 22, 2012, 03:39:19 PM - Avast Volunteer respondent
Reply #3 on: December 22, 2012, 05:04:04 PM » Avast Volunteer respondent (That was you, DavidR.
"It is 3rd party support service and I have reported this to an avast Team member."
December 23, 2012, 09:26:35 PM - Avast Team member
All on record here:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=111683.0
Oh yeah, that was on a weekend. Pretty darn good for a weekend to have an Avast team member responding within 30 hours.
Definitely the yardstick to judge by.
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Wins the prize for weirdest thread ever. :-\
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Wins the prize for weirdest thread ever. :-\
Spot on Alan (http://freeemoticonsandsmileys.com/3D%20Smileys/3D%20Everyday%20Smileys/good.gif)
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Wins the prize for weirdest thread ever. :-\
;D ;D ;D
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Wins the prize for weirdest thread ever. :-\
What might it be that you find weird about the thread, alan3333?
You think it might be weird that I didn't uninstall an expired Avast product?
I only see in the agreement I signed with Avast that I am to uninstall the software if I commit a violation of my agreement with Avast. I committed no such violation.
I have had nobody point me to documentation that Avast wrote that stated their customers must uninstall the expired product within such-and-such number of days after it expired. Have you seen such documentation? If you have, I'd appreciate the link to the page, thank you.
You think it might be weird that an expired product was reactivated without consulting me first?
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Maybe it was your reward for all the help you've been on this forum ???
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I don't see why everyone is so worked up about this.
I am the only one that sees that he has a point? As long has he didn't get a satisfactory answer there is no reason to close the threat. I am guessing he is looking for an answer besides "it could be some sort of bug".
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I don't see why everyone is so worked up about this.
I am the only one that sees that he has a point? As long has he didn't get a satisfactory answer there is no reason to close the threat. I am guessing he is looking for an answer besides "it could be some sort of bug".
+1
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I don't see why everyone is so worked up about this.
I am the only one that sees that he has a point? As long has he didn't get a satisfactory answer there is no reason to close the threat. I am guessing he is looking for an answer besides "it could be some sort of bug".
+1
If you follow this forum a while, you'll see, that it is common sense here that some sort of "überevangelist" (lol-as a german i can tell this is a really ridiculous abuse of my mother tongue) people (don't want to tell names) frequently stand out with their impolite behaviour - i think you should ignore those wannabe moderators/so-called volunteers ... its all a sort of ego thing with those people... maybe too much free time or something like that...
now to your issue:
i think your license renewed because avast ran a program update - with the new avast version, your account is automatically renewed.
It is indeed questionable...because those updates are not directly user-authorized
well - for a normal user this is some sort of comfort - but in your case it is not , i can understand that
i share your thoughts about the ignorance of the avast team - it is not the first time here in this forum...but hey - you are a free user...do not
forget that...
I learned that avast free users (esp. with win8) encounter lots of problems with this piece of software over the time - i only mention: BSODs,Blackscreens,System boot issues (with avast, my win 8 needed 15minutes to boot because of the system integrity check whatsoever), several issues with chrome, dubious network shield patches and so on and so on - it never ends...
free users are some sort of guniea-pig - i guess...
i strongly recommend to deinstall avast free and use a mature piece of security software instead - to my eyes avast 7 and 8 never went out of beta status....although the team claims the opposite...
and the avast team....well yes ... my experience tells, they can write nice words, if they find the time, but indeed that is very seldom and on the other hand there are many situations, where nice words don't help anything...but again: you are a free user ... nobody cares about you.. thats the hard truth...
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you are a free user ... nobody cares about you.. thats the hard truth...
That's a complete misconception, all users free or paid are given the same help here on the forum, paid users have the extra opportunity to use the Avast technical support options as well as what is given here.
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That's a complete misconception,[...]
please don't tell me about my conception - its mine
not yours
thanks
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That's a complete misconception,[...]
please don't tell me about my conception - its mine
not yours
thanks
No one said it wasn't your conception but the matter in hand was your conception was supplying false information.
You complain about the avast help and mentioned having a problem of your own with avast yet this is the first time you've registered on this forum, I'm sure if you had these issues we would have heard from you sooner would we not ???
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conception never supplies false information
it is per definitionem purely subjective - nobody made objective conclucions - well at least it wasn't me...
You complain about the avast help and mentioned having a problem of your own with avast yet this is the first time you've registered on this forum, I'm sure if you had these issues we would have heard from you sooner would we not ???
well - talking about misconceptions:
the truth is i was here (registered) some time ago but when i dropped avast i wanted my account here deleted...
giving avast another chance i tried it out again and re-registerd...
I see, that this is not obvious and requires some level of intellect to consider this possible before trying to offend people this way...
my apologies...
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So I read this thread one more time and I have to say I'm also a bit unsure what it's really all about.
Yes, Avast, when expired, sometimes gives the user a free grace period (after expiration), by auto-renewing its license for a little bit. This has been a feature of the product for at least a couple of years now.
We figured that it's better to keep the user in the loop than to leave his PC unprotected.
In practice, this is a fairly rare case though - mainly because of all the expiration messaging built into the product. Realize that in the last phase (product almost expired, or already expired), the expiration screens are displayed every 4 hours (and the actual act of re-registering takes maybe like 30 seconds, - or 1 minute if you're slow).
To that end, I have to say that I feel like ManyQs is maybe more about testing all sorts of corner cases than about actually using the product to let it do its job - i.e. protect his PCs (as most of our users do). I mean, how likely is the scenario where he ignores all the re-registration nag screens thrown at him every 4 hours (and every reboot), leaves the product completely expire (again keeping up with all the renewal screens) and then goes ahead and installs MSE on the box, without removing Avast first? And at the end of the day, be concerned that Avast eventually shut up and somehow miraculously reactivated itself?
If you don't like the product, that's fine, just get rid of it and move on. If you do like it and want to use it, we will be glad to welcome you back - and maybe even assist you with exploring some of the hidden features like the one you have just discovered - but I'm generally not a big fan of the tone you have chosen here, where you basically start blaming everyone around you and coming up with hypothetical corner cases where a perfectly valid feature is interpreted as something evil.
On a side note, full compatibility with MSE (Win7) and Windows Defender (Win8) is in our test matrix, meaning that you should be fine running these two specific AVs in parallel (I'm not saying I encourage you to do so, mainly for performance reasons, but I'm just saying that you shouldn't have any problems if you still decide to run both of the products together).
Thanks
Vlk
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So I read this thread one more time and I have to say I'm also a bit unsure what it's really all about.
I wanted an explanation of what was going on and if that wasn't made clear in the OP with this question,
Can anyone explain this, please?
And then 12 hours after the OP, here:
- - - 125291.msg944727#msg944727 date=1369452953
Having waited for over 12 hours for a response and seeing nothing I begin to get very nervous.
Nobody from Avast's technical department knows about this?
Or it is so rare that Avast staff is hesitant to respond?
Or somebody has gone to great lenghts to highjack the Avast program on my computer that ...
That last one just couldn't be possible, could it?
If the questions posted in those two posts were not clear enough in meaning, then ...
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To move on:
To that end, I have to say that I feel like ManyQs is maybe more about testing all sorts of corner cases than about actually using the product to let it do its job - i.e. protect his PCs (as most of our users do). I mean, how likely is the scenario where he ignores all the re-registration nag screens thrown at him every 4 hours (and every reboot), leaves the product completely expire (again keeping up with all the renewal screens) and then goes ahead and installs MSE on the box, without removing Avast first? And at the end of the day, be concerned that Avast eventually shut up and somehow miraculously reactivated itself?
- - - 125291.msg945848#msg945848 date=1369676585
I figured somebody was going to ask that question, eventually.
I think you will recall that I stated last year I had to leave Avast. No need to go back into why. So I have allowed the licenses to expire on the other units one-by-one and on the Epson I noticed there was a kind of survey about why I was leaving or something like that and I thought that was fair enough and was going from page to page of the questions and then hit one page after stating on the previous that I would get another product and that next page asked me how much I was going to pay -- multiple choice, if I remember correctly. At that time I thought that was a bit intrusive and just closed the survey. Then we got to talking about it here and one of my folks said I should have been doing screenshots and gone ahead and finished it, so I was planning on doing just that with this Dell, but never had the time. Then presto, come back from dinner one day, fire up the computer to go back to work and see I have a reactivated product. Heck, it had only been about 10 or 11 days since it had expired. Can't be that is too long. Anyway, that answers your question, I think.
ManyQs was not testing all sorts of corner cases, as he has been accused. ManyQs was minding his own business and simply delaying the removal of the product per the explanation which has already been posted in this thread.
And as that was already posted and it would seem that the company employee quoted missed that explanation after stating he has read the thread at least twice I repost it here.
The matter of the company employee accusing me of ulterior motives will not be addressed here in public.