Since my posts are pulled by the mods, I don’t know why they left my account active. Pulled for daring to point out that a subset of their free labor force here (read devotees like Eddy, Rejzor, bob3160, etc) run around this forum like a bunch of bullies attacking anyone who uses a version of AVAST they don’t prefer, or dares to make suggestions on the product. Lisandro is no better, ridiculing users himself, asking if he is “in [sic] Mars” when someone suggests updating without notice was wrong, or using the example of a Commodore 64 (era 1982) as some kind of nexus to people running XP or W7, or perhaps AVAST v7.1474, which is only 2yrs old, not 32yrs. (BTW Eddy uses XP as I’m sure others do.)
I came to this forum with a small boot problem which I worked out with a little help from DavidR, one of the exceptional people on this forum, along with Drake127. It’s unfortunate they are the exception. But while I arrived a fan of the AVAST product, one week here turned me off. The forum apparently places free labor over good business (i.e. letting misguided and uninformed devotees attack users with impunity, then banning the victims of the attacks as trolls when they react to those attacks). Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t about who gets banned… it’s about how this forum shows such poor business sense. It’s about the unprofessionalism of not doing the simple, business-savvy thing, which is to send a PM to all members letting them know ALL users should be treated with respect, and differences of opinion should be tolerated here, just like they are in society.
And crazily, the regulars who are doing the attacking don’t even make sensible, sound arguments. https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=157010.0 Rejzor and company keep insisting no one is hurt by a forced upgrade, saying if a forced upgrade will bog down your machines, so would a manual upgrade… to which all the other bullies [and Lisandro] join in to call users “cry babies” and “wipe your tears” even posting a graphic of a little boy crying. Meanwhile, in the real world of adults we know in a manual upgrade an admin can choose to leave out all but the necessary modules and features (perhaps the File Shield only, for example) if he knows the hardware he’s running can’t take the overhead. (And here is where the bullies jump in to claim they have XP and 2GB RAM and AVAST 2014 or RC 2015 running beautifully… stopping to throw in more abuse… completely oblivious to the fact that an admin’s machines are running OTHER necessary applications for the work they are doing – in some cases custom apps - that might use up much of the limited available resources.)
A machine’s primary purpose is not to accommodate an AV, but to churn out work, esp in a corporate environment. The only purpose of the AV is to allow it to fulfill its primary purpose. So when a forced upgrade comes along unannounced and BY DEFAULT EVERY MODULE IS INSTALLED B/C THE UI DOES NOT ALLOW A CUSTOM INSTALL… that is enough to BRICK an entire company’s network. And that’s to say nothing of a completely re-designed UI which the admin must muddle through, not having had the opportunity to test out the new version ahead of time. A choice s/he likely would have made, had s/he known a forced update was imminent. Or more likely, would have manually updated the network at an opportune time, like when the work force is not there and s/he has time to fine tune it to ensure there will be no loss of productivity… something that could cost that person his or her job.
At least one admin come on this forum to express these exact problems with the forced update, and was attacked and ridiculed for his trouble, quickly leaving as he likely had no time for such nonsense and NON-HELP in this SUPPORT forum. Especially since the bullies turned the thread into a flame war between themselves and AVAST users who preferred older still-supported versions, and notification of end-of-life. And we still have Rezjor, Eddy, Staticguy, and others… again including Lisandro, an actual Team Member… making fun of people for saying the forced update caused serious problems and hardships… all of which could have been easily avoided.
Which leads me to the kicker … the problem is SO EASILY remedied to PLEASE EVERYONE by sending out simple notification or end-of-life notice. But all suggestions of remedies are ignored in favor of attacking “the whiny complainers.” Even by an AVAST team member. And that’s just layers and layers of stupid no matter how you slice it.
These people clearly don’t care about AVAST losing business or taking remedial steps to improve things, nearly as much as they care about being right. And in the upside-down-world of this forum, they are unbelievably supported for that stance. Being directly counter-productive to the AVAST brand in favor of preserving their ego at all costs is business-as-usual here.
FWIW AVAST, the bullies would not bail on you if you sent them a memo telling them to treat ALL users with equal respect and neutrality, even when they disagree. They would do anything to not be banned, because unlike new transient members, the devotees have made participation in this forum part of their identity and the sheer number of posts they have logged under their belts is not something they want to lose. You can tell them to abide by common decency, good business policy (i.e. don’t attack AVAST users, it causes us to lose business) and they will abide. If someone continues to be abusive, consider suspending his account for 2 weeks or a month, rather than banning him. You get to keep your free work force, they get to keep their hobby, and people like me don’t come here for a simple answer, and end up switching away from AVAST because of how little business savvy and common sense this forum is showing. (Or more likely with most users, they will switch away simply for being attacked, which is also understandable.)
So please delete my account. If I could have done it myself, you would have been spared this final bit of advice, which if the ignorance continues unabated here, will also be ignored. Either way, I have moved on to another AV and have taken my clients with me. I’ve seen all of the AVAST brand I need to.
Good luck.