1. Have (or did) you another AV installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ?
It could possibly be your internet connection has started and avast is checking for updates, how do you connect to the internet, broadband, etc. ?
If so you could try to delay the update checks until your system has stabilised.
You need to edit the [InetWD] section of the C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\Data\avast4.ini file and add the following line:
Broadband connections, add this line:
AlwaysConnectedWaitSeconds=120The figure is seconds and the above equates to two minutes, you could try that and adjust upwards if required, 180, 240, etc.
2. The avast update dialogue shows you how big the file is that will be downloaded and it also has progress bars to indicate how much has been downloaded. Since avast uses incremental updates for the VPS (signatures) updates the download size is often very small 25-50KB frequently less, any time taken or time remaining is likely to be pointless (IMHO).
I was never a fan of the AVG update, horrendous and very long, one of the major reasons why I jumped the AVG ship almost three and a half years ago and I haven't looked back.
3. VirtuMonde can be a pain but for the most part it is adware/spyware, whilst avast detects much adware/spyware signatures it isn't a specialist adware/spyware application. To that end I would advise toy have an anti-spyware application.
If you haven't already got this software (freeware), download, install, update and run it periodically.
1. If using winXP
AVG anti-spyware (formerly Ewido). Or
SUPERantispyware Or
Spyware Terminator.
2.
Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition3.
Spybot Search and Destroy4.
Spywareblaster Don't install this until you are clean.