Avast! Free v8.0.1489
Windows 7 -64bit SP-1
Malwarebytes v1.75, Spybot v1.62 - both used only on demand (no resident components running)
Am most familiar with Avira but, this machine was custom built professionally about 3 months ago. The shop which built the computer installed Windows and Avast Free v7. I decided to keep Avast and subsequently updated it to Avast 8 sometime in March. Although I don't like the UI (prefer v7) everything seemed to be working fine. Trusting its autoupdate feature, I did not become aware of the connection problem until Windows informed me that Avast was not up-to-date. I was given no warning by Avast that the definitions update attempts had failed. Nor can I find a log which lists the various attempts, whether successful or failed. (These warnings and logs are easily accessible in Avira). I'm not trying to pit one AV against another, just saying that the Avast UI seems much more complicated and I have not yet taken the time to fully understand it.