I am a user of avast! 6.0.1367 (free) on Windows 7 64-bit. My license
expires soon, so I will need to upgrade to version 7.x. I have been quite
happy with the product so far, and recommended it to many friends.
However, I am concerned that some of the architectural changes you've been
making may have made the product LESS secure for my purposes rather than
more secure. I have two primary concerns:
1. I do not want any program on my system to be making Internet
connections without my knowledge or consent.
2. I do not wish to expose my file system to cloud services of any kind,
even from companies that I trust.
Can you please tell me which components of your product make Internet
connections, and note which ones can be safely disabled or not installed in
the first place? (And what choices do I have with a custom installation?)
The same question applies to your Cloud Services: Are they used for
anything but the Streaming Updates and Reputation Services?
I don't mind the program checking for the availability of updates on its
own, but I want to get my updates manually (as I always have).
I'd also like to have a better understanding of how your real-time shields
work. Do these shields do all their checking against data stored on the
client (i.e., my computer), or are you sending information about my files
or URLs to your servers? For example, your Network shield blocks access to
malicious Web sites. Is the list of known malicious Web sites stored on my
machine, or are you sending all of my URLs to your server to check against
a central list in your cloud? (I do not want that, just as I do not allow
Firefox to send my URLs to Google.)
I am quite surprised that your documentation doesn't really discuss these
issues, and I will appreciate any additional details you can provide.
Thanks!
P.S. - I am also concerned with all the reports I've read about users
encountering hangs and BSODs after upgrading to version 7. Is
it possible to renew my license but continue with version 6?
