I got a forced update as well. I was surprised when I got the message to reboot my computer. I'm running Windows 7 right now, and don't have any plans to upgrade anytime soon. That still doesn't excuse the fact that we are forcefully updated to the latest version. I purposely stayed at an older version for reasons that I don't want to clutter this thread up with.
When a users make a setting that prompts them if they want automatic updates or not, it's expected that the program actually follows through with the setting. What's even the point of that setting if you just pushed the updates regardless of your users' choice? We weren't even given a choice in the matter. The setting was pretty much just ignored. I mean, Avast is set to automatically update by default. Users have to deliberately choose the setting to install program updates manually, and those users are probably the ones who know what they're doing. Why not let them do what they want?