You are absolutely right. And a note to Aventador. Please reread my post above. I do not have a slow system or numerous items starting upon boot as you suggest. The problem did start with Avast 7 and has gotten worse with each release. I also know what the word bloat means and it’s exactly what’s happening to Avast. When the only things that change on my computer is the versions of Avast I know the problem lies there. I stopped using AVG years ago because it got too slow and bloated. Just like Avast 8.
Just for grins I uninstalled Avast 8 today. Installed MSE and the boot up slowdowns are gone. I went back to Avast 8 because I trust Avast a bit better than I do Microsoft. But I would like the speed of my old Avast back again.