I am an administrator for a small company and have recently decided to upgrade from Avast 4.8 to Avast 6.0.1125 on our 12 machines. We have a legal subscription to Avast Pro for all the machines.
After updating, and going through all the program settings to disable internet connectivity (company requirement), Avast is still trying to communicate with the internet. The connections are coming from AvastUI.exe. I need to disable these connection attempts, but see no way of doing so from within Avast.
My boss now thinks that Avast is spyware and is leaking company and user data to the internet. Unless I find a way of disabling these connections FROM WITHIN Avast, I will get fired by the end of the week. Please help - tell me there is some hidden setting in Avast to disable these connection attempt, or please provide me with a modified executable that does not behave in this way.
Unfortunately, my boss will not accept that excuse - from what he sees, Avast is trying to connect to the internet and that is all that matters to him.
Are you sure there is no way to disable it? Why would Avast programmers do such a nasty thing?
Is there any way of putting this to a wishlist for next version or to receive a modified executable?
It’s just a DNS lookup of the specific URL - in case it’s needed later.
Yes, it’s possible that AvastUI.exe connects somewhere (later) - e.g. to display the popups when the license is close to expiration.
Your boss needs to reach for the sky. I feel bad for you but seriously if he fires you over this i would take him to court because avast and a legit av company and that can be proved they don’t steal info.
I have found that when I have no internet connectivity, (ISP is down or such) that Avast totally bogs down and takes forever to even open the gui.
The main point however though is that apart from the necessary connections to update, Avast only connects when you open the gui. It has to connect to display the animations which are flash based just like on a web page. In it’s normal running in the background state, Avast will only connect to check for updates and even that can be turned off. Your boss is being very paranoid.
Hi, it is true, that avast uses flash to display graphs, but these graphs are local, not downloaded from any web page, so no network connections are needed to display them.
Which shouldn’t appear in the paid version that the OPs business, the “show remote content in avast! user interface” option isn’t on the free version.
Though if just using the Pro version, I don’t know if there would be any option to upgrade to the Avast Internet Security product. But unchecking the “show remote content in avast! user interface” option should stop that.
Ok, not sure about the adds, they might be online, but not they are most probably not in flash. Just wanted to make clear, that avast using flash does not mean any unnecessary traffic from the gui - it’s just a scripting engine/graphical engine that we’ve found convenient for such task.
Since I first saw you’re post the situation you describe has become more and more intriguing to me. What about all the other software that communicates via the internet? Browsers, MS Office, CRM, accounting packages? Does your boss insist that they all be blocked?
Of the businesses I’m involved with, none have ever requested that avast! or any other product for which a large part of it’s role is to protect the PC from internet-borne threats, be prevented from communicating in such a manner, especially when that application depends on net access for updates.
