There is no such thing as a NON-intrusive pop-up, imo. Sky is blue, water is wet, pop-ups are intrusive. That why I suggested what I did. You are not increasing intrusiveness much when the existing pop-up is already displayed at least once per-boot already.
If the pop up would "steal" the focus (of your current window or whichever other object or job being done), I would agree 100% with you.
When you perform a manual database update (as oppose to the default "automatic" database updates), the full main GUI of Avast shows up. That's a "no no". That's "stealing" the focus.
The tray notifications "MUST" be improved. There are bugs; the colors should be changed (specially now with these ads), they should be easily configured for transparency (optional, so system resources for "cool" multimedia features should still be optional and not by default) and so on. But the need for improvements doesn't mean that they are completely intrusive.
Being "clear", so the user can easily identify them as "important", "critical", "general info" or whatever is, IMHO, more important than appearing over the tray area "a few times per year" (and let's hope it is REALLY a few times per year).
I routinely recommend the Pro version of Avast to my business clients. After seeing this disgusting advertisement on my daughter's netbook earlier today, I will not do so again.
I don't see the relation. The Free edition of Avast is not for business. I would agree that a paying business should not receive this tray notification ads. For making offers for businesses, there are better (more respectful) ways, so Avast Software shouldn't take that path. But we are not taking about businesses, are we?
