As we are all already aware, avast! team is prioritizing AVG over avast!. Now that I understand what they are trying to achieve, I don't worry over it much. But there is still one thing I'm very much concerned about. While avast! and AVG merger gave excellent Software Analyzer to avast! infrastructure, new avast! and AVG are both scheduled to be released early 2017. We are only getting AVG beta builds. Meaning they'll basically just design core and than slam it into GUI for avast! in January 2017 and release it whether community likes it or not. Yeah, I'm actually getting that impression and that kinda worries me.
Problem I see with this is that avast! community apparently won't have ANY say at how things should go, what new features should we see. And not being involved when new major version is being shaped, this means we won't see any requested features till 2018 when new version will arrive.
I've made tons of recommendations on how DeepScreen should be engaged for Hardened Mode excluded files, Sandbox usage for CyberCaptured files, the idea for anti-ransomware protection via existing HIPS module etc. I have no clue whether any of this will even get into avast! 2017. The interface preview we got was frankly not the best and now that they are postponing the whole thing in favor of AVG, we have no idea if they'll just run with it or redesign it entirely.
Not being involved anymore and not knowing what they are planning worries me indeed. I know they still have the final word on everything, but seeing how our recommendations shaped avast! over years to be more how consumers want it and less how programmers intended it, it really feels awkward not being part of that all of a sudden.
I always look at the situation how avast! as a software would benefit me personally the most, but at the same time I always think how having that feature would also benefit AVAST Software the most. And I still believe avast! needs to make headlines from protection side of things through innovation. If new unique malware arrives, like ransomware did months and years ago, if you deliver efficient protective measures first, that's the best PR you can possibly have. But avast! just plays it so passive all the time. I mean, just look how everyone is designing ransomware counter measures for very long and avast! doesn't really have anything yet despite them basically having all the functionality already there, they just have to connect. avast! is a security software after all and no matter how fancy GUI they use, people still look at protection efficiency as highest priority. Recommending it to others is the easiest task if you have clear arguments to back that up. But if you have to constantly make excuses like "well, but you see..." you've already lost the argument. That's why I think it's important we have a clear communication from both sides. Mine is endless bitching because only that actually makes things better for everything and everyone and avast! team telling us how things are going on their end so we both know where we are and how things will/are go(ing). It worked absolutely amazing for years and it would be a shame to ruin that by lack of communication (which in all honesty am sensing at the moment). avast! just has so much potential and they keep on under utilizing it for some reason. Not knowing where avast! 2017 is heading is not helping that either. There is a lot of uncertainty floating around and that by itself is causing a bad PR by itself as well...