Curious: Why yearly registration? Does Avast stop working if not registered?

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I’ve switched long distance friends to Microsoft Security Essentials just to avoid their/my inconvenience with registering Avast yearly. They’re easily upset.

So, why yearly? What happens when the registration expires?

Thanks.

2

Avast! Free Antivirus 6.x can now continue to be used for 12 months and you will continue to receive automatic updates to both the program and your virus definitions. At the end of that time, it will be necessary simply to register for a new free license all you have to do is re-register a free license every year only IF they are using only the free version.

There are two ways to do this

  1. On-line Registration
  2. Off-line Registration

See link https://support.avast.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=459

Only the Pro and Internet Security are the paid version their subscription only required for 1yr, 2yrs and 3yrs registration.

3

When registration expires, Avast will continue to work, but there will be no virus-data-base updates → which is not good.

Registration makes sense as to keep the actual user-count current and correct.

Since Avast 5 it’s just a click in the UI, a matter of 5 seconds. What is so upsetting about that?

4

During our meeting in Prague, Vincent Steckler ( Avast’s CEO ) told us they had an idea for a different renewal policy for Avast! Free. That is that the user of Avast! Free still gets (a) warning(s) when his licence is going to expire. But when the user forgets to renew an active ( = updating ) license, the renewal will be automatically done by Avast!. The idea behind it is that it makes no sense to let an active free licence expire. But I have no idea if it will be implemented.

Greetz, Red.

5

Well, that would raise the question: why license a free version anyhow?

And, one more question: how does Avast determine an “active” user? The download itself implies activity, doesn’t it…?!?

6

For statistic reasons. They want to know how much Avast! Free licences are active :slight_smile:

Probably they look if for a licence VPS updates are downloaded.

Greetz, Red.

7

Well, that would mean that Avast would need to identify each System when it tries to download the updates.
Which, in return, means that the system would need to transmit some kind of specific ID… is that desireable?

8

Zyndstoff, It has been mentioned in the past that registration helps them determine server load etc.

9

First off …Just before the yearly license Expires on your version of Avast…For about a WEEK even longer you get a NOTIFICATION POP UP telling you to register…Also Dude how hard is it to write in your Email??? I would assume it would take alot longer to uninstall the old version and than install the Security Essentials…And it’s good for 1 year…
Just my opinion…

10

Thanks for the answers. I understand the need for statistics.

However, the friends I do this for are “afraid” to touch the buttons and don’t want to screw things up. Have you never aided 70 year olds? They upset easily. It’s not a pretty thing.

I see it’s true now I need only push a button to re-register them but they’re 100’s and thousand miles away. I have used TeamViewer in the past and don’t mind doing it, but it’s a hassle for me.

Besides, my re-register didn’t work and I had to go through email.

I only bring this up because it strikes me as a little cumbersome. Most people don’t want to know how to do it, they just want it to work.

11
However, the friends I do this for are "afraid" to touch the buttons and don't want to screw things up. Have you never aided 70 year olds? They upset easily. It's not a pretty thing.
If so then MSE is not the thing as they need to push some buttons if it finds a virus so then i would recomend Panda Cloud, where almost every thing is automatic...and no register
12

Thanks, I’ll check it out.