I was aware of the self-defense module and how to disable it, but I really don't want something else I have to remember to disable every time I want to install a program. Besides, if I understand some of the earlier posts by others, avast is throwing the pop-ups concerning access denials just from users opening programs they already have on their systems. I certainly don't want to have to disable self-defense every time I want to run a program.
If the access denials are just informational and don't interfere with other programs installation and operation then I won't want to see continued pop-ups concerning them. If the denials will interfere with other programs' normal operations, then hopefully avast will find a way to deal with it. Right now I am running the last release (version 4.8.1169) which has the self-defense module and I never see those pop-ups, so I assume (hope) it is a bug in how self-defense is working in the beta and that it will be dealt with before another official release. I guess if nothing else I could just permanently disable the self-defense, if it works in the next official release in the same way it seems to work in the newest beta. Not what I would really want to do but...