Same issue for me.
As I understand it (indirectly) from this discussion (for the first time), it as a consequence of a new licensing model (more or less taking a really convenient feature away from Avast Free users and somehow moving it to the premium stream?).
This may be acceptable from a business perspective, but it is still very annoying to me, because I think it hasn't been properly announced.
Just letting people run into it by chance ist not a good policy.