Sorry, but your product and whole company is one big mess

[Patrick2]

Well i'll do my best to help fix things in the program if I can, sadly breaks my heart to even think of removing Avast completely, probably why I haven't as yet, Safezone browser auto installing on some Systems I can deal with currently, that not really a major issue in my mind.

Improving Protection is, as well as Fixing Deepscreen, NG, Stopping of the Bloatware and Non Security add ons if possible, and among other protection features working properly

[polonus]

Well, pointed at this thread I came here and agree that we all seem to realize now that Avast has come at a critical point to finally decide where it wants to go as an AV product.
Back again to be the top-notch free AV solution with it's once unique position or held completely hostage and hijacked by it's commercial and marketing staff. Of course all that is done at Avast should be oversighted by the decision makers, but when they are smart enough, they will grant independance to their top developers of the software enough to make the software return like the user once loved it, solid, secure, reliable and not led by alliances through outside forces (for whatever reasons that may be). Unless they take this critique seriously, I see the product going further downhill and do not see where they will decide to change course.
I can understand when software firms try to run a competitive product into the ground by acquiring it first and then leave it to rot.
But I cannot imagine Avast like to ruin the product by design themselves. That would be silly. But the ad-launching spree and the lack of opt-ins was a mene-tekel for me.

polonus

[Eddy]

It breaks my heart to read those comments, especially given most of them come from our most loyal users (some of them with Avast for 10+ years!).

That is only one heart and it is nothing compared to the huge amount of user hearts avast has broken. (nothing personal mend ofcourse)

I understand that any forward-looking statement about upcoming improvements will likely not sound very credible at this point,

Not only at this point, but is hasn't been sounding (and proven) credible for years.

And I think I will need y'all's help with fixing the 'mess' -- do you think you could help us?

I (and many others) have told avast about problems, bugs and other things for years.
Yes, some things are solved/improved.
e.g. how Moroni is handling/running support now.
It is still not (far from?) perfect, but a huge improvement compared with how it was.

A example of why people are stepping away from avast are these:
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=182478.msg1289032#msg1289032

Point 4 :
4 months later avast still haven't solved it.
You can call it a minor annoyance, but it is rather easy to solve and avast hasn't solved it months after the first reports.
Many small things make a huge pile and when the pile of small things is getting larger, people will stop trying to climb it.

Point 2 :
I have only seen a change on several avast webpages saying that a SSE2 supported system is needed.
Guess what, it means that Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 is not supported by avast anymore if the hardware doesn't support SSE2 instructions.
But on other avast webpages avast is saying that named OS's are supported.
And the changes on the webpages where made many months after I reported it to avast.
I call it "a real cheap way to cover your ass".

RejZoR, I will talk to you directly. Thanks.

Let's say you get RejZoR back as a avast user through a private conversation.
Are you gonna talk to the other 20 million users that avast has lost also in private trying to get them back?

[REDACTED]

do you think you could help us?

Vlk, I would love to say your user base could help you "solve" Avast's problems.
However, with this thread and countless others I think Avast's management is failing to see the forest from all the trees.
The "problem" is the core direction and company policies that Avast clearly has moved to over the past years.
The countless threads and complaints are the symptoms (ie. outcomes) of that fundamental "problem"......and problem if not changed will become septic to your future.
IMHO Avast has moved from the very best at what you do.......A/V.....into a marketing company trying to capitalize on a so-called 200M+ user install base.
Business is Business as they say but when your core "Evangelists" are jumping ship maybe it's time to taken a harder look within Avast and scrutinize the decisions being made and by whom.
If you don't believe me, or the others, do this as a trial..........hold a company meeting with all the software developers, and no management, and have them silently (you guys are good at that now) take a vote if they are proud of items Avast is rolling out ? ..........do they feel their work is top notch or is diluted/rushed ? .........what do they feel the corporate mission of Avast is and has this changed in their minds since joining company ? .......are their hard efforts aligned with the corporate mission ?  I'm curious if their feedback on what they feel the corporate direction and priority aligns with the thoughts of upper management ?  My guess is Avast is full of a lot of very, very smart people that know and see the same thing your users are but perhaps are not in position or enabled to affect change. It also seems that your user base.......especially the Evangelists in this Forum......feel they are reached out to Avast with their inputs. 

For me.......and I'm a no one.........but have been in the IT world for 30+ years.......I see "software" as a risk/return/reward.
Free is always great, but I have no problem paying for value either.
However, simply put, Avast offers now very little "return/reward" for the "risk" that can is evident/aligned to company direction....even "Free" I've been in holding pattern since V9.
For some apps it may be OK to push the envelope of risk on......but not the health of your PC.....a very prized and personal asset to an individual.....novice to expert alike.
Virus - Malware - Cryto prevention is at the very top of the list for any person owning a PC with regards to trust and expectations of the company they allow into that very personal domain.
Sadly, there are companies out there doing it correctly.......Avast was at the top of that list for a long time........I hope it returns to the former self. 

 

[Be Secure]

do you think you could help us?

What Avast can do now to make things better for long time users and new customers:
Fired those "Genius" who ruined the Avast!
1.Remove those nusty Ad on GUI
2.Stop delivering unnecessary stuff+unfinshed and useless stuff(HIPS and DeepScreen)
3.Improved the Protection
4.Totally remove NG/SVM.
5.Back to AD FREE WORLD.Stop promoting android things on a pc antivirus it is not needed.
6.Unhide the useful Software Updater.Back it from Tools(Statistics)
7.Reply to the submitted Unblock viruses as quick as possible.
8. Bring back Avast! Voice notifications.
9.Find bugs and fixed Bugs as fast as u can.
FYI:Take a look at Avira it has not change for many years now but serve the same quality as in 1986 the year they started their journey.And Avast! journey beside it you can see the deference by yourself.@Vlk
But it is little late for avast! to bring back the loyal users.So sorry for it.

[ZombieZoom]

Avast as a management is failing, that's for sure. I've been keeping my silence for so long but since RejZoR is leaving, I am thinking about leaving too. I might wait till the end of the year when my Internet Security license expire though.

[Coolmario88]

The old avast from 4.* days i think are gone.. I mean they are doing a lot more bad business tactics.. I still use avast free but doesn't mean i don't think avast needs to rethink how they are doing things.

[giogio]

1. Fix DeepScreen and Avast NG flippin finally.
2. Stop with all the bloatware and add security features again. Same with Android apps.
3. Improve the detection rate again.
4. Get the HIPS finally working, its not doing anything right now, except FPs.
5. Get Ransomware and automatic Exploit protection in, youre way too late to this.
6. Fix all of the other bugs that Avast contains right now, just search the forum for them.
7. Get the communication between Avast devs and users back. (Maybe reopen a Feedback site where everyone can leave feedback)

+++1
mostly for points: 5,4,3 & 2

[RejZoR]

Oh for fucks sake. I spent 2 freaking hours writing incredibly lengthy and detailed post and then the forum fucks it all up and it's now gone. Fuck this.

If I condense everything I've been writing about in that 2 hour post into few words (will sound harsher than it did there):

All the fancy tech avast! introduced over the last years were pretty much non functional, didn't provide any visual or measurable results and as such it's hard to use or recommend it to anyone. If program has unmatched protection, people will stick with it no matter how many other problems you have. And by having unmatched protection you give avast! Evangelists the primary weapon and primary tool to spread the word and attract new users and as a result, new potential paying customers. If you don't have that, recommending it to users to protect their systems would be simply dishonest thing to do. If I don't have the confidence in the product to protect my systems, why would anyone else use it?

[Secondmineboy]

Oh for fucks sake. I spent 2 freaking hours writing incredibly lengthy and detailed post and then the forum fucks it all up and it's now gone. Fuck this.

If I condense everything I've been writing about in that 2 hour post into few words (will sound harsher than it did there):

All the fancy tech avast! introduced over the last years were pretty much non functional, didn't provide any visual or measurable results and as such it's hard to use or recommend it to anyone. If program has unmatched protection, people will stick with it no matter how many other problems you have. And by having unmatched protection you give avast! Evangelists the primary weapon and primary tool to spread the word and attract new users and as a result, new potential paying customers. If you don't have that, recommending it to users to protect their systems would be simply dishonest thing to do. If I don't have the confidence in the product to protect my systems, why would anyone else use it?

Copy anything to the clipboard before posting, this forum bug got more than enough times already.

[RejZoR]

I usually do that with long posts, I reminded of that the moment I clicked the Post button and it was too late already...

[Secondmineboy]

Please post all stuff that you would like to be fixed, improved or removed here:

https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=185364.0

How about making it sticky?

[Vapor]

I have to agree as far is avast not been reliable and something is always wrong I don't remember signing up to be beta tester of  feel like guinea pig, sorry not on my watch.
I've been avast Pro user for probably around 13 years and  I was strongly considering something different for the past 2-3 years, due to those ongoing mishaps but always found way back and renew my subscription of my multiple computers.

Well..this time around (in 43 days) I'm turning away from avast, to many  issues and to many promises that are always felling short.
avast became bloated software loaded with ad-dons that I will never use anyways and half the time, they causing problems.

As I said 2-3 years ago, avast is heading the same direction Nero did, they were my favorite multimedia software up to version 7, they got greedy by adding bloatware crap  to it,look where that got them today.
 

[bob3160]

Please post all stuff that you would like to be fixed, improved or removed here:

https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=185364.0

How about making it sticky?

[DavidR]

<snip>
2.Stop delivering unnecessary staff+unfinshed and useless staff(HIPS and DeepScreen)
<snip>

You keep saying staff (employees) when you mean stuff (things), this substitution makes it confusing.