Is Avast! Now Pushing Major Version Revisions for Free?

Avast Business Avast Endpoint Protection
1

Since nobody responded to my last question, I will approach this in a different way.

I have been using Avast! managed business products for about 5 years. Until July 1, 2013, I understood that the Avast! business model was as follows:

When using the managed “business” version of the software, the server may receive and push “minor” program version updates to clients automatically. That is, if I purchased a managed license for Avast! 4.x, I got updates for version 4.x.x.x automatically, for free, as part of that license. During the three years I had the license for Avast! 4.x, I never once received a “push” of version 5.x, 6.x, or 7.x, even though by the end of my three-year license the current new version was 7.x.

In April 2012 I purchased a 3-year managed license for Avast! Business Pro 7.x. Up until July 1 2013, my server pushed minor program version updates in the 7.x range, as I expected.

Beginning July 1 2013, I am now getting version 8.x automatically pushed to my clients, even though I never purchased that version of the software.

So my question is this. I only have a 3-year license for Avast! Business Pro 7.x. Am I supposed to be automatically getting version 8.x “pushes”, or not? Yes or no?

Thanks for any help.

2

I don’t think that’s how the business model works. When you purchase a license, it’s valid for the given period; if a new major program update is released in between, the license is valid for the new version (of the same program edition) as well.

avast! 4.x and avast! 5.x were very different products - the code was so different that there was basically no way to update from v4 to v5; the update process was more in a way of “uninstall avast! 4 and install avast! 5”. Also, the license keys/files have changed, so even though your license was still valid, you needed to get it converted to the new format. That’s most likely the reason why there were no updates pushed (also v5 had different system requirements - didn’t work on Win9x/NT4 etc.)

avast! 5/6/7/8 are rather similar - in the sense that technically there is no difference between updating from avast! 5 to avast! 8 and updating from avast! 7.0.1466 to 7.0.1474. So there’s no reason not to have updates to avast! 8 available.

3

Hi @KDibble

As Igor says: “When you purchase a license, it’s valid for the given period; if a new major program update is released in between, the license is valid for the new version (of the same program edition) as well.”

Maybe the problem is the way we have to update our avast! systems in a business enviroment. In a business enviroment avast! program updates are not automatic, the administrator has to decide when and where the update (and the reboot) is done. In most customers, reboot a server is not a easy task and it has to be planned, same with clients.

Even, as Igor has told, from avast! 4.8 to any other avast! version, you have to make a manual migration.

But, from avast! 7 to avast! 8, you only have to upgrade manually your AES and then configure a task to update the clients.

4

Thank you for clearing that up about the updates. However, there IS a major technical difference between Version 8.x and Version 7.x.

Version 8.x has BROKEN my POP/SMTP email clients on Windows XP and Windows 7 boxes. These clients are getting constant Avast! messages about “invalid” mail server “certificates”. (See my post on July 9, “Avast! Claims Certificate Invalid” for the original problem; since then I’ve learned more details.)

I do not believe any such certificate is actually “invalid”, because this is suddenly occurring all at once with three DIFFERENT sets of POP/SMTP servers. Their “certificates” cannot have all “expired” at once.

This Avast! message about invalid certificates appears when various versions of Eudora, Outlook Express, and Thunderbird attempt to access either an external (internet) or internal (LAN) POP or SMTP server. When the message appears, the client is unable to download/send email. The message window contains a checkbox indicating that I can “permanently” accept an “exception” for this “certificate”, and a button to press to cause the exception to be accepted.

Pressing the button allows the email client to proceed to download or send email at that time.

However, checking this box and pressing this button does NOT reliably cause anything to be permanently changed. At some point, whether before or after a reboot, and in some cases after the passage of as much as 24 hours, the Avast! “invalid certificate” message will eventually reappear while accessing the SAME server that a “permanent exception” was allegedly saved for.

Also, when I press the button on the “invalid certificate” window, I get another Avast! message saying that Avast! now has a different way of handling SSL connections and I should enable SSL on my email client.

I don’t know what, if anything, this has to do with my problem. However, NONE of the POP/SMTP servers I use requires or allows SSL connections. None of my email clients are set up to use SSL, and if I set them up to do so, they would no longer work with these servers. So that is not an option.

I have over 90 managed clients on my network. So far since July 1 this problem has occurred on over 15 clients, with new occurrences being reported daily. Almost all of these clients are running on “restricted” domain user accounts. The users have no rights to administer the computers or install software.

Uninstalling the Avast! client and reinstalling from a Version 7.x package doesn’t fix this–which I now understand if I’m being forced to accept Version 8.x.

However, attempting to permanently “accept” an “exception” for these bogus “invalid certificates” does not work reliably either.

I hope I am not going to be told that these “exceptions” can only be permanently stored by administrators because Avast! is writing them to locations that are not write-able for ordinary users. This is 2013; nobody should be programming Windows applications to do that today.

Users are getting more and more upset about this, and management is breathing down my neck. We paid several thousand dollars for a 3-year license for this product. We are not in a position to eat that cost, uninstall Avast!, and go with a different product. This problem has to be fixed.

Please advise.

Thank you.

5

Thank you, Edj. However, these updates from 7.x to 8.x are indeed happening automatically without any action taken by me. The managed server is doing it on its own.

6
The managed server is doing it on its own

I don’t believe that because, there isn’t any option to update clients automatically in the console.

Maybe, users are updating their machines manually. What option do you have for program updates in the console: manual or ask?

7

Edj,

The web console (Avast! Administration Console version 1.1.132.15) does not provide any way for me to change any settings related to program updates that I can find. Where is this setting specifically?

Also, users cannot “manually” update the program. Users are restricted domain users; they have no installation rights on their machines. Also, any attempt to access the Avast! client requires entering an administrator password, which the users do not have.

I’m not making this up. Before July 1, 2013, the server routinely issued minor program updates in the 7.x range. Beginning somewhere around July 1, 2013, the server stopped issuing 7.x updates and started issuing 8.x updates. Believe me, if I could fix this by reverting the system back to version 7.x and blocking anything in version 8.x or later I would do it.

8

Sorry! we are talking about diferent consoles.

I’m talking about AEA 8.0.355, and you are using ASOA 1.1.32.15.

In ASOA you have an automatic program update under group properties.

9

Okay, found update settings under Group Settings.

Program updates are “automatic”. Perhaps I will set it to “manual”, uninstall version 8.x clients and reinstall version 7.x clients as my next step to fix this problem.

However, I am still unhappy about this “certificate” issue. What business does Avast! have investigating the “security certificates” of email servers? Avast’s job, with regard to email, is simply to scan email messages for viruses. It doesn’t need to know anything about the server to do that.

The usefulness of such “security certificates” is not uniformly accepted by IT experts. Why are we being forced to conform to that model?