To sum things up, I’ve been using the free version of Avast for a long time. A little over a month ago it updated itself to a trial of Avast One. Now that the trial is over, when I look at the icon in the task bar it says “Not protected”. When I start Avast,. all the items say open, which leads me to believe that I really am not protected? So the questions I have are, am I really unprotected, and if so why would Avast do this? If not, how do I get back to Avast free, short of uninstalling and reinstalling? Also, why would Avast install a free trial version when I had it set to not update automatically?
Avast free did not update itself to Avast One on its own. You misunderstood a request to try Avast One.
Is the version of Avast One Essential which is free of Avast One which is a paid product?
Did you supply a credit card when you changed to Avast One?
If you have Avast Essential, download the free version of Avast, uninstall Avast One using the removal tool,
and then install Avast Free.
I know for a fact that one day I had Avast free and the next it was Avast One. I don’t allow anything to install or update unless I do a complete backup first (earned that lesson many many years ago), so of anything is offered I say no until that happens.
I says it is Avast one.
I didn’t supply anything. Like I said, it did the update without asking or me starting it.