I have a PC which is not connected to the internet and was installed with the latest Avast Free 2014.9.0.2021
This is PC is at a remote location and I visit it every few months to update it by tethering my mobile phone to it.
When I visited this PC a few days ago, to my horror, I found the PC is infected with virus and all Avast shields are disabled. I noticed Avast free subscription has expired and thus I assume when it expired, all shields are disabled as well. This leaves my PC’s door wide open for any viruses to enter. Anyone with an infected USB drive can infect the PC easily.
I find this disturbing as Avast should have at least keep the shields enabled instead of disabling it since it is a free product. I am now totally lost hope on Avast for protecting my PC as a good product should have at least protect my PC using its current virus definition and not by totally tuning itself off when it expires.
@ 64bit
As far as I’m aware when the registration expires, only the virus definitions can’t be updated, the shields should remain on.
This would mean you would have to download the full virus definitions to update the virus definitions. However, this is something which you would already need to do for a system that doesn’t have internet connection, otherwise the virus definitions get way out of date.
This could lead a virus infection due to way out of date virus definitions - which inadvertently could disable avast.
@Eddy: You do have a point there but this might be problem for unsuspecting new users. Hopefully no license is required for free 2015 version.
@Pondus: I manage to remove the virus with Malwarebytes free.
@DavidR: I do have the same assumption as yours. Unfortunately, I see all shields are indeed disabled and I cannot enable them. The PC was updated online by tethering my mobile phone to it once every few months.
It seems I would need to submit this as an enhancement request.