How OLD Should avast Downloads Be Using avast Servers

[Chim]

Aren't the avast downloads straight off of the avast Servers supposed to be the most up to date out there when it comes to what Virus Definitions they come with?

What is the average age of those downloads?  In other words, how often are they updated with the latest definitions?

Is this link still a valid one?
http://files.avast.com/iavs5x/setup_av_free.exe

I downloaded avast from that link this past Saturday 02-04-2012.  I'm shocked and really disappointed that that copy turned out to be so old.  The copy I downloaded was from 11-28-2011.  That is right around 9 WEEKS old!  I had never encountered such an old download from the avast Servers.

Needless to say, downloading 9 weeks of Virus Definitions Updates last night after my avast reinstall was a mega HUGE task via my Dial Up.  I don't believe I had ever encountered a Virus Definitions Update longer than 2 or 2½ hours before.

How long did last night's download take?
I started at 8:30PM.  By around 11:30PM, the GUI Progress Bar indicated it was barely slightly less than 1/3 of the way through.  Yikes!  So, I had no choice, but to for the first time ever, leave my computer on when I went to bed so that it'd finish the download while I slept.  I have no idea at what time it finished, but at the pace it was going, it probably took 4 to 6 more hours.

Is there any download link that gets updated more frequently than once in 9 weeks?  I don't know how many MegaBytes that was, but it had to be ginormous for it to barely be around 33% through after 3 hours.

[RejZoR]

Well, either installer would be much larger from the start or you just downloaded the updates later. The end download size would be very similar.

[Asyn]

Is this link still a valid one?
http://files.avast.com/iavs5x/setup_av_free.exe

Yes.
It's the latest stable v6 build.

[ady4um]

As I explained in your previous topic, the definitions are NOT all 100% cumulative.

The link is valid for the last program version. If the program was release 9 weeks ago, then the program comes with the definitions from that day.

Now, say the updates were ALL cumulative (they are NOT, so this is just for the sake of the explanation). You would have to download the equivalent to 9 weeks of updates.

Code: [Select]

2 updates per day x 9 x 7 days = 126 updates
But, as said, this is not the case. Many update files are simply replaced. So instead of downloading 126 times the "same fileNAME" (with a different version number, meaning a different definition file), you are downloading it only once. If such file is around 100KB, then each update would had been around 100KB (for the purpose of this example). Since you are only downloading it once (not 126), you download only around 100KB (not accumulated, not 100 x 126 = 12600KB).

So the first definitions update may be a little bit bigger than usual. The important point regarding your main question is that the 9 weeks doesn't really matter. It doesn't affect you.

Currently, the full VPS is close to 50MB, but you are not going to download 50 MB at once in your first update. For the most part, the program was released ("9 weeks ago") with most of those 50MB already.

[Chim]

I understand what you're saying, ady4um.
But, if the 9 weeks didn't affect me and were really moot ... the reality end result sure gave the impression that I WAS definitely downloading the equivalent of 9 weeks of cumulative updates.

If the 9 weeks wasn't the culprit, SOMETHING sure seemingly made time stand still cuz as I commented, at the end of 3 hours, the download was actually slightly less than 33% through.    That had never remotely happened before.  I had never encountered such a long, inefficient download before.

And it couldn't have been a bad connection because I actually tried a download the previous day as well, with the same inefficient results, except on that night I did give up and pulled the plug on the download and went to bed.

Well, who knows why the Download Progress Bar was moving at a snail's pace the last 2 nights.
Whatever it was, hopefully the next time around I have much better luck and experience a much more normal wayyy shorter download.

[DavidR]

Well there is a tipping point, at which time avast would consider downloading the full database than try to download a massive set of cumulative incremental update. Unfortunately no one has said what that tipping point would be, but it seems to be greater than this period.

That said the version available for download should be updated more frequently that being just the release date of the last program update (which this one seems to be version 6.0.1367 released 2011-11-28). http://www.avast.com/release-history-home

[ady4um]

I don't think there is a need to update the posted setup.exe after the release.

There are several advantages of  leaving it static, until the next release. One of them is that the setup.exe is the same, no matter when you download it, no matter from where (repository). Changing it could bring more problems (or confusions) than solutions (BTW, there is a support article with the official MD5 checksums of the latest release, but it is not always updated on time).

The need to replace the complete database arises when all the updates are bigger (in bytes) than the original (source of info: Avast Team member). This could take several months, and even a year.

But the new builds are released more frequently than that, so if they were to rebuild the database, there is also a chance they already do it before a new build is out to the public (unconfirmed, but this is how I understood it). They won't do it for "every" release, since many users will still be updating their definitions while using the previous release. So, if all this is correct (and I believe it is), a full rebuild (and full on line download) would happen after several months (much more than 2) with the same release and with many changes to the engine and database.

The original database of avast 5/6 is about 31MB. We are at about 50MB. See you after the next 2010MB  .

[EDIT]
Corrected 1 value.
[/EDIT]

[DavidR]

There are also several disadvantages:
Clearly this is the case for Chim as being a dial-up user the longer between program releases and the greater the issue when it comes to the first VPS update.

Over 3 hours on dial-up and the update progress is barely 1/3 complete, that isn't acceptable. Whilst the greatest majority of users will be on broadband it shouldn't be forgotten that of the 190million plus registered users a minority will still be on dial-up (this would still be a large number). I guess you have forgotten the pain of being a dial-up user.

In this case it is over 9 weeks since the lase program update and 9 weeks in terms of new viruses/malware, so until that user gets updated his system is at greater risk.

I can't recall the setup.exe not being periodically refreshed on the avast download page in the past.

[ady4um]

@DavidR

If the user can download (internet cafe anyone?) a 70-80MB setup.exe, it should be able to download 50MB for the full VPS (talking only from the bandwidth *speed* point of view). But if the user downloads the setup.exe, the first on line update won't be 50MB, but MUCH less.

About the setup.exe not being updated with newer definitions, it is always updated when a new stable release is out, and "that's it".

About the 3 hours for dial up, I haven't forgotten dial up, but 3 hours for LESS than 50MB (which in reality, the on line update should be MUCH less) is not normal. Should Avast Software contemplate even other factors as bad quality connections? There is *some* limit, somewhere.

[DavidR]

Well you forget the problem, user manages to somehow get hold of setup.exe but is massively out of date and is then trying to download the huge incremental update, that still takes a very long time.

That was what Chim was talking about in the first post:

Needless to say, downloading 9 weeks of Virus Definitions Updates last night after my avast reinstall was a mega HUGE task via my Dial Up.  I don't believe I had ever encountered a Virus Definitions Update longer than 2 or 2½ hours before.

That was just for the incremental updates not the full database, which an option totally unworkable on dial-up, so personally I feel that the dial-up user is already jumping through lots of hoops to use avast, why make it even harder by not periodically updating the setup.exe.

As far as I'm aware there used to be periodic updates of the setup.exe outside of program updates that necessitate and update. I just wonder why the practice stopped.