I'm still running the April 14, 2021 release 21.3.2459.
It's set to notify me about app updates, but that has never worked, but that's not what this topic is about.
The point is - I did not yet get or install the recent app update.
My virus definitions are up to date as of right now.
I noticed yesterday I started to get popups -
"Firewall has allowed <programname> to access the network."
Every application listed was actually autoconfigured years ago - basic apps I have been using for years without changes.
So eventually I went into the Firewall settings to see what had changed.
All the rules the firewall had automatically built over the years was simply lost. The list of configured applications was very small - just included a few apps I have run since yesterday.
My custom rules are also, naturally, gone. I saw the evidence of that when outbound things that my rules would have blocked were getting through.
This started happening yesterday. The evidence suggests to me:
1) Though I am never notified when it finds them, Avast does check for new versions
2) Whatever it did when checking and upon finding there is a new version caused it to delete 100% of the autoconfigured and custom firewall rules.
I restored a backup I made of settings back in November 2020, and that did restore my firewall rules.
I suppose I should be making a backup right before, and right after, every upgrade to a new version, but that might cause as much trouble as it fixes in a case where Avast simply destroys its own data months after the most recent application update and backup. I mean, restoring a months-old backup can introduce its own problems.
What is going on here?
In case it's relevant, I'm using Windows 7.
