A bit disingenuous - whilst older versions of AVAST are not 'supported' the definitions used are still being updated on a daily basis.
There is no reason to suppose that will stop. If AVAST ever do then they'll be slapping some long time loyal supporters in the face. I think, at least hope, they understand that upsetting people who actually want to use AVAST products, even an old one, are in effect sales-persons of incalculable value.
I'm using a v8 version on a VM and have no intention of changing that. Its footprint is far smaller than the current version and there is less unwanted 'features' too. On the VM I'm using I actually can't run anything bigger or it would have a severe effect on performance and eat up even more of the dwindling small SSD's free space.
It works unobtrusively, apparently effectively alongside the other protection I use, and has given me few problems in years. That's principally why I still appreciate, if not love AVAST, and why I happily recommend it to others when asked and sometimes even when not asked.
Same with CCleaner despite the big mistakes they have made and ire they've created in their handling of it.
Getting hold of older versions offline installers is the problem though - in my searches and trials on a new PC I was setting up I found most of the archived older AVAST installers are the online versions and simply download the most recent package.
I've always thought AVAST has missed a big marketing opportunity - a small footprint AVAST Lite version. Something that just did the basics, didn't do anything you did not want it too, user configurable and working away in the background so you barely knew it was there. Remember what that was like? What a joy that would be.
