Forced update or not, you can't convince me with any argument that you had no time for 3 years to validate the new(er) version and update accordingly. Because any argument just hinting into that direction would mean you're just plain lazy. I understand when people wait for month or two after brand new major release for things to stabilize and calm down. But doing so for 3 years and still not being able to update to a newer version. Sorry, no, no and no.
If anyone asks me, avast! team should really only allow one older version and update every other older version without users having any control over it apart from being asked to restart the system, after the program update has been performed. So, when new version 10 will soon be released, version 9 should still be allowed, but anyone still using version 8 or older would be updated to latest version whether they like it or not. When version 11 will be released next year, version 10 would still be allowed and anyone still using version 9 would be updated to latest version. If you haven't bothered to update your antivirus in 1 year, you never will. Plain and simple fact.
EDIT:
Oh for god sake, cut the nonsense with "it isn't right to crash people's computers "for their own protection"". Now you're saying like they're intentionally crashing systems. WTF!? If system crashes because of avast! update, it would happen either way, whether you update it manually or by automatic update. If system was destined to crash (because all the right parameters aligned for crash to happen), it would either way. And at that point, does it really matter if you're next to it when it does or you see it crashed after you wake up in the morning, lets say 3 hours after the crash? It makes zero difference and makes it a very poor argument that some of you keep on re-using again and again.
It's not like installer or updater notifies you: "Hey there, i'll crash now, so don't update me". It doesn't. It just happens or it doesn't. And with such massive user base and so many different system configurations, it is bound to happen at one point to a certain % of users. It's unavoidable and thinking it can be avoided just means you're delusional.
Rejzor1) Two things you don't force... an operating system update and an AV update... why, because by their very nature they are intertwined, crucial to each other, intrusive in that they, by themselves, alone or together, are affecting everything on your computer, and they have the ability to wreak havoc if something goes wrong.
2) Avast is not taking into account a full embodiment of what their actions might have caused and/or didn't care and did it anyway. A cost/benefit analysis was looked at and they said, but we think it's in the best interest so do it... as such did exactly what you said, for your own protection, we are willing to take the risk with your data and equipment and crashed them, which they went through before last year when they did this same thing because of Microsoft and evidently didn't learn their lesson.
3) According to you, everything everyone has been telling you is a poor argument so pick your battles because you're killing any credibility you may have left.
4) As I try to understand even what I think is nonsense, I'd like to ask you two core questions:
a. If I understand correctly, your entire argument is that protecting people for their own good means it's ok to force an update on them (if that isn't it then I'd realllly like to know why you even care). So you have some sense of protecting all of us poor defenseless folk... but then you make the next argument that you are not ok with someone just being lazy and screw em, they don't even deserve any kind of notification (keeping in mind that probably makes up a large % of people who even use computers). So on the one hand you force yourself upon people and that's ok (regardless of consequences), but when it comes to any kind of customer service, empathy, caring, just being a decent person, then sending out a note is just too much with which to bother. Doesn't that seem like a contradiction in your core philosophy? Some people are saved and others explode and it's all dependent on who you think matters? Are you saving us from ourselves or not?
b. Let's take a scenario where you work for a company, completely arbitrary... Rejzor Corp., Inc. A subsidiary of Saddam Hussein Enterprises. Ok, so your company goes out of business because your CEO was caught in a spider hole and hanged... you then have to find another job. So you go to work for another company and you are sitting in a meeting looking for a solution to something and they say any ideas... you say let's force it down their throats, they will bow to my whims or die.
The meeting organizer responds and says that's not an option what else do you have?
My question is this... assuming we don't live in a world where dictators run companies... and forcing it down the infidel's throats is not an option... what other alternatives do you suggest?