First, I’m an Avast user and not an Avast Team member.
Ordinarily I have Avast set to Manual Update
Avast 26.3 was released with a bug which has recently fixed and a bug fix was released, I don’t know if this had the inadvertent action to install it over 26.2.
You don’t say if this uninstall of Avast Premium was a clean uninstall in Safe Mode and using the Avast Uninstall Utility or not. If not there could have been remnants that triggered the 26.3 bug fix release.
FYI: of late, when you check under Menu, what components are installed on Avast Free, it will say “Premium Security”. Even though everywhere else in the program it says Avast Free. It’s confusing.
In the firewall, try blocking outbound connections for avastui.exe, aswtoolssvc.exe, aswidsagent.exe, wsc_proxy.exe, avemupdate.exe, overseer.exe, allowing them only for avastsvc.exe and instup.exe; this is sufficient for automatic antivirus database updates.
Block incoming TCP and UDP connections for avastui.exe (two allow rules for avastui.exe are created automatically if you use the Windows firewall).
You can disable the two Avast tasks in the Windows Task Scheduler; they do not affect database updates.
Everything works fine for me under these conditions.
For the moment I don’t want to adopt the solution you propose to block the executables… if I get something wrong there could be problems.
In any case, thank you very much!
Thanks for the screenshots… so for someone in that panel it says Free Antivirus… good to know!
What could be the cause?
Would uninstalling and reinstalling Avast Free solve the problem?
Yeah, I’ve run into the same thing. A couple of things worth knowing:
The “Manual update” setting in Avast only applies to program (app) updates, not virus definitions, and even then Avast will still push what they call “critical” or “micro” updates automatically for security reasons. So technically it’s working as designed, even though it sure doesn’t feel that way when you wake up to a new version you didn’t ask for.
The jump from Free to Premium is a different story though. That shouldn’t happen on its own. Usually it’s triggered by clicking a promo banner or a “Try free trial” popup inside the app, so it’s worth double-checking you didn’t accidentally hit one. You can also head over to Menu > Settings > General > Popups and turn off the promotional notifications so it stops nagging you.
Setting it to “Remind me when an update is available” is probably your best bet for now. If you want a cleaner fix, go into Settings > General > Troubleshooting and uncheck “Enable self-defense,” then Settings > Update > Application and pick Manual again. Some folks also block the Avast updater in their firewall, but that’s a bit of an overkill.
I’m pretty sure that I didn’t click any promo banner or a “Try free trial” popup inside the app. Anyway…
If you want a cleaner fix, go into Settings > General > Troubleshooting and uncheck “Enable self-defense,” then Settings > Update > Application and pick Manual again.
After that, I have to enable again “Enable self-defense”?
@serasan When installing v26.3 from the offline installer, there is no option to select which security components to install. So I installed v26.1 and manually updated it to v26.3 online via the program menu. Free Antivirus remained Free Antivirus, and the number of security components stayed at four. All in all, everything is fine.
@serasan I didn’t have a choice of components, so I did what I described. What significant improvements were made in v26.3 that caused the installation package size to increase by as much as 150 MB?
You won’t find the older installation packages on avast.com.
I have the opposite problem. I’ve got my Avast Free set to auto-update but I have to manually check to see if updates are available (I never get a notification that an update is available) and then manually update! Not a show stopper but it is a nuisance.
