How to stop annoying pop-up ads??

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
21

I had a fear that things would not be as easy as you made all them out to be.

I installed 5 as you all suggested and avast says the installation is complete but I cannot do any scans.

When I click on the scan tab in the left side bar I get 4 rectangles that are completely blank save for the icons on the left side of each. No controls and no way at all to do settings or start scans and cannot locate any way to turn them on. Tried a repair without success. Even worse, after using the restore point created during the install, 4.8 is nowhere to be found. Using safe mode and reverting to a restore point made 1 week ago is no better as what remains of 4.8 is apparently not enough to get it running.

The rest of the GUI seems to display and work properly.

The system is clean; I hope some of you have some suggestions!!

(I year old custom built laptop with XP Home sp3, intell duocore processor, 2 gb ram 160 gb hd, Comodo 3.14 firewall, Spywareblaster, Malwarebytes, regular online scans with ESET, and Sophos)

22

Usually a simple reboot is enough to solve this glitch… can you confirm that?

23

Why don’t the setup ask to a reboot all the times? I can’t understand this policy… Simpler programs ask for a reboot and why not the antivirus?

24

Because it’s not needed.

25

I rebooted several times during the process of trying to discover a remedy for this condition and again after reading your posting and what I can confirm is that nothing has changed.

  • I rebooted immediately after the install was completed
  • I rebooted again after customizing the other settings and options
  • I ran system restore and chose the restore point created by the installation. It is misleading to call it a restore point since the system no longer contains the reason one would most likely run system restore: to return to 4.8
  • I entered safe mode and reverted to a restore point one week older. It restored the 4.8 icon to the desktop but did not restore enough of the files to start 4.8. The uninstaller must also be incomplete as I cannot remove what remains of 4.8 via add/remove.
    [li]I downloaded an installed 5 again from the Avast web site and the condition remains… nothing under the scan tab except blank rectangles.
26

And so? Will the users continue to come here to say that they see nothing into the scanning window? ???

27

got to say I never had to reboot after installing the “free” version… was immediately operational. Okay it doesn’t seem to be the case for some…

28

Even the scannings?
Installed from scratch or updated?

29

including the scanning processes, yes, and just when installed from scratch. Rebooting is always necessary when updating, you’re prompted (“free” version). All would keep working fine anyway after updating and not rebooting, but most likely without integrating the version changes.

30

Thank you for your concern.

While you were bickering among yourselves I removed 5 and installed the Comodo Internet Security package which is working properly on my system.

I will try to remove what remains of 4.8 manually in hopes that Avast may someday find a solution for the problem I had.

31

Sorry to hear that it didn’t work out so well.

Did you use avast uninstall utility http://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility to remove any traces of previous versions.

32

Can you describe the pop-up you are getting? There’s a couple that I know of that are part of the Avast program. Bare with me if I am paraphrasing here:

I have Avast 5.0, but from what I remember from 4.8, you get usually twice a day:

“Your Virus Definitions Have Been Updated.”

If you have the program set to "Ask When Update is Available, you get this message:

“A new version of Avast is available click here to download.” (or it might say Click For More Information)

If there was a problem updating you might get a message that says something like this:

“Your Avast Anti-Virus Software is out of date.”

The other one is that after one year, (or after any new install of Avast, you must register the product for 12 months of free updates and upgrades. When you have about 20 days left to go before your license expires, you will get a message from Avast that says something like:

"Your Avast License expires in (number of days) Click here for renewal information.

The early releases of 5.0 in January were very buggy, but for the last 2-3 months, millions of users have benefited from Version 5.0. It is much better than 4.8, is lighter on resources, and the registration process is much easier. You should uninstall version 4.8 and get 5.0. We can help you register it as well. If this software had only been out for about a month or so, I would say, wait, but it is really good now. Certainly the best free AV out there.

Do my above examples illustrate the types of pop-up message you are getting? Do they all say Avast in the right-hand corner of your screen? You should consider updating to version 5.0. It sounds like you are getting messages from your old Avast product recommending that you update.

You can certainly stick with version 4.8 if you choose, but as of December 31, 2010 Avast will no longer apply any more updates of any kind to 4.8. At that time, you would have to upgrade to version 5.0 or choose another AV program. Some people have tried Microsoft Security Essentials, and found that it works well. BUT the majority of people who have used MSE come back to Avast, because they like it the best of the free AV that they have used.

Regardless, you should have only ONE AV on your computer to prevent slowdown and memory conflicts. Make sure you remove any competing AV software before you install a new AV program. Although it is not required to remove Avast 4.8 to install Avast 5.0, manual removal of 4.8 is recommended for best results.

I am very happy with Avast 5.0 and it works fine on my old Dell Desktop PC (Windows XP) (SP-3)

Jack

33

Just ignorer this minor glitch,Im sure there well be a patch soon.