Is Avast Free forcing me to update to the latest version?

[wallofasgard]

Good day,

I've been an Avast Free user for almost 5 years and very satisfied with the basic protection it gives and giving me.But these past few days,i've noticed that three of my Home Computers that are using the version 8 of avast free automatically updated its version to 2014.9.0.2021. I swear that i set the automatic update of program to manual while the virus definition updates are automatic.

I also see to it that the Avast update is password protected.

I am still using Windows XP SP3 so i am a bit cautious about the latest updates since some of its features may not support my OS.

Is this behaviour of automatic update of program normal even if i set it to manual?

[Pondus]

there are already several topics about this....

here is one
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=157010.0

[wallofasgard]

OH, thanks.

I don't have the ability to delete the topic, i'm sorry.

[wallofasgard]

Last question if you don't mind. If the old versions are phased-out,will i experience the same automatic update of my 2014.9.0.2021 when version 11 comes out? And as of the moment,since i am using the last build of version 9,it will not automatically update itself to version 10, right?

Thanks for enlightening me.

[RejZoR]

If you're using the very latest build of v9 you should be fine, though i really don't understand why there are so many people holding on to old versions. It's not like you have to pay anything for an upgrade, so why not use very latest technologies now and not a year or two later when they won't even matter much anymore because there will be another new stuff in the pipeline? Antivirus is only worth much if it's as up to date as possible.

Certain features might not be supported on WinXP, but none that you don't already have with the old version anyway, so updating to the latest won't really change anyting to the worse. It can only be either equal to the old version or even better because certain cloud features work on any system and using old versions also prevents those cloud features to be used. But could be with the latest version. That's why always keeping AV updated to the latest version is the best thing to do.

[REDACTED]

RejZoR, people don't want to update to the latest version because they've been bitten by Avast! before when trying to do so. Personally my Vista computer was hosed by going from v8 to v9. It took major downtime to get it back up and running and going back to v8 until they fixed their problem. It's that kind of bug that makes me and others hesitate before upgrading from v9 to v10 -- will it hose our computers again?