Having used Avast IS for the past 10 years or so my renewal is coming shortly, and I have reached the point where I am wondering whether it is worth paying for, or to simply revert to the free version of Avast.
I have looked at the features comparison between FREE and IS. (I won’t even go into Avast Premier as I feel the ‘extra’ features it carries are just unnecessary).
So, the differences between Avast FREE and IS are; SafeZone, Firewall, and Anti-Spam features…
[b]1. SafeZone - If the Firewall is doing it’s job, why should there be a need for a ‘Safezone’?
Firewall - I can download a free one as I see many people on here do.
Anti-Spam - Only useful if I am using an email client, which at the moment I am not. When I did use an email client I didn’t really see the benefits of having Avast Anti-Spam protection as it marked my good emails as Spam much of the time. Also, when it comes to Anti-Spam I think you are your own best protection. Know what not to click on, it’s common sense for the intermediate to advanced user.[/b]
So, my questions are as follows…
[b]1. Does Avast Free have a manual software updater? If not, not a huge problem.
When Avast IS expires and reverts to the free version, am i going to be left with a red cross over the Avast symbol telling me i have not got full protection, or will there be an option to choose the free version without uninstalling Avast IS, then installing Avast FREE?[/b]
A couple weeks ago I went through the exact same thing, my 2 year IS license was expiring and I was debating going down to Pro or even free.
So I went through the features same as you.
I never use Safe Zone, more often then not the firewall prevents things that I want to run rather then preventing things I don’t. As a smart user I can safely assume also that either a free alternative or just windows firewall on Win8 is more then sufficient for me. Using Thunderbird with my three email accounts and anti-spam never showed much activity or prevention at all. The software updater in IS I never used and most of the time disabled. I have my own means of keeping all my software up to date. And last, since I had been getting the nagging from IS about my subscription about to expire every day for a week straight I didn’t give Avast time to revert to the free version (if it does that at all, I don’t think it does). I just did a clean uninstall and installed a fresh Free version on my own.
In summary, Avast is still a great anti-malware/virus program. I will continue to support them and recommend Avast to whomever needs a new AV. I just don’t feel like my money is well spent for my needs on one of their paid products.
Didn’t have any in mine at the time. But I recommend you take the necessary action of deleting or cleaning all the items in the chest prior to uninstalling either way.
Thanks. I know what you mean about the constant pop-up it really is annoying. Avast is a very good product, but I do feel they are becoming more of a money making business now with all these constant add-ons being pushed. I use Avast Mobile Security for my Android and it’s the same thing there.
Well they are a fairly large company and you can’t feed all those employees mouths by pushing only free products.
Just like any other program or app. If its free, they have to try and make money some how. If you don’t like ads or promotions popping up, then buy the product.
Let’s just say i go for Comodo. Can i install it whilst keeping Avast Firewall turned on? I need to do it this way as i have created some exceptions in Avast Firewall for certain software that needs to be blocked on all ports. If it unblocks just for one second the serial key will fail.
So, the idea is keep Avast Firewall on, install Comodo, add the exceptions to Comodo, turn Avast Firewall off. Will this cause issues?
Actually i have just realised i have gone through a bit of an airhead moment. To get around this all i have to do is disconnect from the internet during uninstall / install. Duh!
