I came back from a short vacation to find that Avast Free has been ‘upgraded’ to a new version and look; Version 17.1.2286. Although the interface has a more comprehensive look and feel, this new version does seem to be a bit ‘heavier,’ in that access to various setup aspects of the program take a while to find, and once found take a while to manipulate.
I chose Avast to help me limp through my last few months of MS Vista, and was delighted in how fast and unobtrusive it was. Now, however, it seems to be more “in my face,” and has misidentified a couple of programs, showing them as ‘games’ rather than the graphics utilities they are. I remain impressed with the program however, and once I migrate to a newer OS, will probably opt to include Avast on the new system.
The Gaming feature is still being fine tuned and will be better by the next release.
It can also be removed via the Component section in the Avast settings if it isn’t a feature you need.
Part of your problems are related to using an, by now, outdated Operating System.
Thanks for that, Bob3160. I had the Gaming Mode turned off, but continued to get notified of my graphics program being accepted into the Hall of Gaming. I have uninstalled that component within Avast now and hope that does it. I appreciate the instruction.
As for my ‘obsolete’ OS, don’t get me started on that! I’ve had every MS OS ever released and, yes, Vista on this computer is the oldest. However it is the only one that has not caused me grief of some sort. I have two Win7 and two Win10 computers as well, and only wish they were as friendly, discrete and stable as this particular installation of Vista. I will miss it when it’s gone in a few months.
I really dislike the new update. First it creates problems with my games when it didn’t before. Guild Wars 2 doesn’t work on it unless you disable all shields.
Also some of my programs refuse to open while the anti virus protection is on.
Overall this update is a huge step backward. I uninstalled after a day or two and am going to use a different anti virus solution.
Another thing is some times when I try to open the user interface of Avast it shows a blank screen.
Well, could you be more specific on WHAT programs exactly don’t work so avast! team can check it out?
Also, for Guild Wars 2, can you only disable Behavior Shield in Settings → Components and see if it works then? So we can pinpoint the exact shield that might be causing this.
It’s certainly not a step backwards, but as with every major release like this, problems will appear. If you give us as much info as possible about it, they can fix it. Problems like thi are considered very severe and they’ll fix them very quickly, you just have to give them more info.