The latest from the Nagware policy of Avast

[-ECS-]

I'm running the latest version (8.0.1497) of Avast 8, and I am very happy with it. I'm not into the Metro UI trend that every company seems to be crazy for (turning our pc into an ATM), so I decided to skip and wait to see what Avast 10 will bring ( just as I used Avast 6 and went straight to 8 ).

What happened today ?
Avast starts to report that the fact of not using the latest version is a problem that needs "fixing", so from now on, my security status is yellow, and the icon in the tray displays the yellow warning triangle, I'm guessing forever, or until I update, which I don't want to. What happend to having a choice ?

Am I the only one that thinks this is BS ?
I'm never goona know if the icon is telling me there's a real problem, or this nagware crap to update, and I'll have to keep opening the UI and take a look.

Worse, this modification in the code came obviously through an update to the viruse definition list, no product upate was made after 8.0.1497.
What I'm getting at is, if they can make modifications to the program itself through the virus definitions update channel, when should I aspect the forced update to Avast 9 ?

[mchain]

hi -ECS-,

Suggest doing a repair install of the old version 8.0.1497, and the toaster pop-up re the update notification to version 9.0.1500 will continue and is normal.

What happened today ?
Avast starts to report that the fact of not using the latest version is a problem that needs "fixing", so from now on, my security status is yellow, and the icon in the tray displays the yellow warning triangle, I'm guessing forever, or until I update, which I don't want to. What happend to having a choice ?

You can safely ignore the pop-up that will appear after repair operation until you are ready to update to the newest version once the gui is reset.  avast! will support 8.0.1497 as long as you wish to keep it but the notification will continue to appear until you actually do update.  (Note:  If and when you do move up to the newest version, best option here is to do a clean install of version 9.0.1500, or later bug-fixed versions, as there are too many new features in .1500 not present in .1497, many new and different file changes, so to avoid issues with upgrading within the gui, go the clean install route for best results and much less troubleshooting.  Update to the latest version via a clean install.)

Don't do an upgrade via either the toaster or within the gui.  You'll save yourself some grief if you choose to do it this way.

[igor]

What code modification are you talking about? Just as avast! knows that new virus definitions are available, it also checks whether a new program update is available. Such a functionality has always been there, why change code?
Besides, how about the option Settings / Status Bar / Program version - do you happen to have it checked?

[-ECS-]

igor thanks a lot
The status bar setting was indeed to blame and I unchecked "Program version".

What I was saying is that the status bar was always monitoring "Program version", and until today Avast did not consider not using the very latest version, a security risc, ergo my conclusion that the behaviour was changed on purpose.

No matter, it's fixed now, I have no problem with monitoring the Program version myself, I've been doing that anyway, program updates was and is set to manual.

Thanks

[igor]

I don't think the behavior has changed... but until recently your avast! (8.0.1497) was the latest version, so there was nothing to report.

[-ECS-]

I still have my suspicions.

I never update like immediatly when a new version came out, sometimes it took days (for various reasons) until I allowed a program updated, and it never behaved like this.
Also, I skipped Avast 7 all togheter, and for an entire year until Avast 8 was launched, Avast 6 never complained, although to be fair, I don't remeber if 6 had this setting.

[RejZoR]

I've always updated every single thing to latest version and very rarely had any problems what so ever.