I haven't been getting the ads nearly as often as in the recent past thankfully.
I can say that over the past year or more I've been getting so many complaints from so many users who I've recommended Avast to. I've been involved in the academic field for several decades in the past and recommended Avast to literally many 1000's of people, seriously.
I've had to put up with a lot of complaints made to me personally for sure. I can attest to literally many dozens of people I know who have stopped using Avast over the years (many of whom I recommended Avast but many others I did not as well) that let me now personally simply on the basis of the ads they switched to other AV protection. I can imagine there are many times that number who of course did not contact me. And I've read many reviews over many months as I'm sure others have and it is often mentioned in these reviews how Avast is an annoyance in this regard (which I'm sure does impact potential new users).
Helpers on this forum often insist this is not a serious problem, well I can tell you I've got many emails and or phone calls from friends and acquaintances that I recommended Avast to and some of whom are often older that I know that are not that tech savvy that I installed on their computer as well. Those who think it's not been an issue or should not be can think what they like, but I can honestly say that over the past year or more it's not been fun for me being a person who has in the past strongly recommended Avast and touted it to be the best. I'm certain many helpers on this board will still insists I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill, all I can say is what my experience has been.
Well anyway since I've been getting less ads as I mentioned I've just recently started to occasionally recommend Avast once again to people I know in various areas of the tech field as well as some who are not.
This is the reason I'm posting here now.
For example here is just one recent email I just got back today after I have recommended Avast to a developer friend of mine (that btw, I had recommend in the past as well).
Avast is now installed. I last uninstalled Avast on May 4, 2015 due to (a) too many popups and (b) it stopped working. (a) obviously wasn't the determining factor, but I hope you're right. I, too, can put up with the occasional ad, but AVG has been showing at least one every day (sometimes more) which is ridiculous.
As you can see, he was looking for another AV and not happy with AVG for reasons mentioned.
I'm posting this because I really do hope that Avast continues to show less ads so I don't have to eat my words once again and I can hopefully start recommending Avast to the many people I am acquainted with in the IT field and elsewhere.
So PLEASE Avast!! --- don't let me down. You may think and even have business models that say aggressive advertising is a benefit, well all I can say is from my experience you've lost a boat load of users based on this premise and perhaps you have actually gained some paying customers, but I can assure you that on the other hand I know of many others who may have been potential paying customers at some point that went elsewhere for their AV protection.
So again, I hope I don't start hearing complaints from these recent recommendations, I've warned that there will be an occasional popup ad, but only every few days or so which of course is far from ideal but is generally acceptable to most users.
