An ad does affect the functionality of the program. People hate ads more than syphilis. Nobody would tolerate IrfanView launching popups. And it is one of the best freeware programs. Antiviruses are necessary evil. Best advertisment are satisfied users. Ads are intrusive and distracting.
The function of an antivirus is to protect the PC from malware… and it’s doing that with updates, shields and zero day protection features such as Deepscreen. An ad doesn’t affect it at all… it doesn’t affect the protection so it doesn’t affect the functionality.
I hate to bump a week old thread, but I just wanted to ask something. What exactly is the verdict on these advertisements? Is it a bug, is it possible to disable, and does it interfere with the functionality of the program? I don’t think I really got an answer on how to approach these ads.
I went one day without an adblocker installed, and Malwarebytes Pro was tripped several times by ads. I received several tooltips saying that the program had “blocked a malicious IP address”.
Ads on the web may differ (lead to malicious domains). However, the avast! ads are certainly not infected and linked to mainly the avast! site or avast! blog.
these popup appear with the free version, the staff of Avast are not philanthropists ... one must live!They appear on my paid version. If I had the free version they would be fair enough. But I'm less annoyed now that I find out that they are, apparently, unintended.
There’s a workaround to disable the ads (shown for the VPS updates) until it’s fixed…
You need to uncheck the Show notification box after automatic update (avast UI > Settings > Update - scroll down to details).
The workaround Alikhan mentions, which turns off the pop-up notifications of software updates to which the ads are tied, works for every version (free or paid), by the way. I’m quite liking not having to deal with any ad popups for weeks now.
-Noel
What does VPS stand for?
If I’m not mistaken, Avast Free had always been popup free up until recently (as in 6 or so months). I do believe it always had its ads, but they weren’t half as intrusive as they are today.
What does VPS stand for?
I haven’t seen a formal definition, but the one I’ve read that makes the most sense is Virus Pattern Signatures.
I’m afraid you are mistaken the small toaster popups have been around for some considerable time. I have some captured images of them when they were toying with the double height popup (circa July 2012) combining the VPS update notification and an ad/tip; a promotion for EasyPass from October 2011; an upgrade offer from July 2011.
So they have been around for some considerable time, the only problem with this time is that the piggybacking with the VPS update notification has screwed with the regular auto update notifications. But monitoring that problem on my other system, I am consistently getting the regular auto update notification, with voice over and the popup duration is also correct.