Concerning "you should export the settings before updating..."
I know that, but... personal settings are set to "NO program-updates"... to avoid that (and other problems).
At a certain "unknown moment" Avast decides to do a full program-update... or micro-updates by itself.
It is impossible to export before updating, as the update-moment is not decided nor known in advance by the user.
At that point, settings are changed/reset "without" any notice.
After then, an automatic scan finds virusses which are "false positives"... which were excluded here years before!!!
This causes users to correct this problem over and over again...
Avast always gives this same problems, time after time... update after update, for the last few years.
They are never learning I believe.
They could give a waring as "Update ready to install"... "Choose to RESET or KEEP your personal settings".
Personal settings have a reason, and should at least be respected and not be overwritten by default.
Certainly not by an unwanted and unexpected update... which you only see "after" it happened.
Its realy time for Avast to "think"...
Only if there are any "new" settings, then those "could" be pré-set... or asked for wanted setting.
Existing settings should always be kept as set by the user(admin), and only be changed when this user(admin) allows that.
Even if the user keeps backups of settings, it is still anoying that those disappear and have to be reset manually.
In between, the scan with false positives already happened with all concerning consequences to repair.
This is so annoying, and so much loss of time.
This is mearly a problem as some of my PC's are not used at home but by students at university far away... and I am not always there.
AV-software should protect them, and not giving monthy sabotage of our equipment.
This situations give more problems and consequenses than they avoid.
Avast is comming to a point of giving more problems than eventualy catching a virus.