large virus def. downloads normal?

[pepe2]

I've got an old laptop with very little space left on it and ever since I downloaded and installed the free version of avast I notice that it appears to download at least 100 mb of data every day. (130mb today) Is this normal? I thought new virus definitions added each day couldn't possibly amount to files of that size. I'm running out of space and just wondering if this is normal, or is there some kind of cleanup of temp files that is not happening? It basically eats away about a gigabyte of space from my poor laptop every week and I can't afford the disk space! Is there something I can do to change the download size or cleanup files or is there something wrong with my install?

[CraigB]

Avast does not download this amount of data, it might be scaning that amount that is coming into your system from somewhere else.

[Asyn]

I notice that it appears to download at least 100 mb of data every day. (130mb today) Is this normal?

No, the usual size of VPS updates is 30-80 kB...
Have you autoupdate enabled..??
Are you downloading the updates from the avast site..? (http://www.avast.com/download-update)
If yes, this is only needed for an offline system, as this is the whole database...!!
asyn

[DarkPhase]

I registered just to reply to this, I'm having the same exact issue.

[igor]

Please post some more details - what exactly do you mean by "downloads", how do you measure that?
avast! certainly doesn't download that much during virus definition updates. However, the unpacked defs might take some space on the disk, yes.
An automatic cleanup is certainly in place, there's no need to do anything special.

[Pondus]

What about posting the download size here in the Virus update history, so that those who wonder can see the file size ?

http://www.avast.com/virus-update-history-2010

[DarkPhase]

What i mean by downloads is every time avast updates (IE:Every time you get the the pop up letting you know Avast has been automatically updated) It seems to take up quite a bit of space.

[igor]

Yes, but the space is released after a while (it's not possible to say how much, could be minutes, could be more).

[DarkPhase]

Yes, but the space is released after a while (it's not possible to say how much, could be minutes, could be more).

Ahh ok, That's fine then i just wanted to make sure my Avast was in working order. Thanks much for responding.

[Asyn]

I registered just to reply to this, I'm having the same exact issue.

Nice. But you should hide your email to prevent getting spam...!!
asyn

[DarkPhase]

Ahh, I just changed it. I figured this forum automatically did it.

[pepe2]

By downloads I meant simply looking at my disk space right after starting up windows xp. I could click on my computer and keep clicking on refresh until the avast pop-up comes up telling me my system has been updated (I have it set to automatic) and I could see the disk space going down until that point, often at least by a hundred megabytes. As another point of reference, when I would take my laptop on vacation where I had no internet access and no updates could be made, my disk space stayed exactly where I had left it the week previous, save a small increase caused by  downloading photos from my digital camera.
 I'm curious about the mention of "unpacked updates" and cleanup that is supposed to happen, as I have seen some unexplained recovery of space every now and then, but it certainly doesn't happen on a daily basis. I couldn't even guess if it's even a regular occurrence.

[swarnava]

try to update avast offline thorugh here

then update avast autometically