Avast in my books used to be ranked at the top, have recommended you guys countless times, have personally uninstalled tons of AV software and replaced it with Avast as it was my personal preference, and choice. Even after a few more companies jumped into the FREE AV market, I still continued to use Avast even though I knew it was becoming more and more taxing on my PC’s resources with all the extra’s.
Today’s stunt though has opened my eyes, and I am now re-evaluating your place on my PC, and everyone else I knows PC. Yes, you can be replaced…
If I wanted the Google Chrome browser I would have installed it myself! >:(
The fact Avast has taken it upon themselves to automatically install it during today’s upgrade, suggests you’re taking a turn for the worst and letting corporate greed be the decision making factor now. AVG took the same path, and was replaced in the world of free av when they too started making bad decisions.
Whom ever decided to make it a mandatory install, with no user agreement being accepted for its install should be fired, as they’re now placing you guys down along side the guys who take pride, and make a profit by installing Malware, adware, etc…
If this happens again, if I get another installation that I do not agree with I will be uninstalling Avast and switching to Comodo’s free AV software, as they’re just as good in my opinion and use less resources than the ever increasing demands avast is creating on ones system.
No, I did not get that screen… No options were presented to me, just a reboot, and done.
This is exactly what took place, I got the usual blue pop up indicating an update was available, I clicked update now, it asked me if I wanted to update free, or try 20 days of paid version I selected free one. When done PC wanted to reboot, I accepted the reboot, walked away and came back to it saying it was finishing the install. When it was done I had chrome on my desktop…
I left for 10 minutes, is it possible there was a timeout on reload from reboot and finished up install on its own with default options selected for chrome?
If there is a timeout coded, then additional software installs should not be selected by default…
Thanks for sharing screenshot, but I was not given that option on my update.
I don’t know why you didn’t get the screenshot after installation and reboot.
That is the problem with default opt-in setting (and why I don’t like it) if there is any problem and you don’t get the screen to choose if you want it or not.
It sounds like there was a time-out, and if you don’t uncheck after a period of time it goes ahead with the install with chrome included.
I will be certain to keep the program updates set to “ASK” and be careful to stay with the machine until I can select the option to up- out. This is borderline if true - and unfortunately there are probably going to be some upset users who end up with the unwanted software.
I had a similar experience to HighOnTek. I’m usually very careful about that sort of thing and didn’t see any opt-out boxes on the final screen. I think a big part of the problem is that opt-out/-in options usually aren’t found on the finish screen, especially not after a reboot. I would normally expect to see them early in the process. Once I’ve rebooted I’m really only expecting a bit of reconfiguration, not full on installation of anything. In any case, wherever opt-out/-in options appear, they ought to be made extremely visible, not buried under a lot of text and logos. If I’m not interested in what the latest changes are, I’m not likely to read through to discover that there is other pertinent text following the list of changes.
I was also rather annoyed that instead of an e-mail address I could send my complaint to, I had to register for a forum I will likely never use again, just to say something to the company. Barriers to customer communication mean you’re less likely to find out when customers aren’t happy.
I am sorry you feel the way you do and hope you do come back. Communication here at the forum is very good to excellent, just so you know.
As for the opt-out issue, there is a workaround for that.
You wish to see the opt-out occur earlier in the install process, so here it is: You will land on a page after beginning the install and that page will have the option of “Custom Install” at the bottom. Select custom install and among several other options, there will be the opportunity to opt-out of Google Chrome at the bottom of this page. Untick both items and continue on.
If all proceeds as it should, you will neither see the page to opt-out of Chrome on reboot, nor will you see Chrome silently install.
@ mchain
If you have an image of that I would appreciate it as I always do a custom install (excluding the P2P and IM shields) if I install over the top or clean install and I can’t recall ever having seen a chrome option in there.
TIP #1: check out avast options → troubleshoot (or something like this) →
uncheck “make chrome the default avast browser”
TIP #2: if you are affected by the non appearing “install chrome browser” choice
window during the reboot after an avast update you can consider a personal
firewall like comodo as the last line of defense because, if properly configured,
it asks for permission to let "google_updater.exe "access the internet. if you decline 2 times the avast update process (aswOfferTool.exe) gives up and the (update) process is complete!
Shows again that any install should never be treated as a “routine” issue. Be it unticking what you do not want or placing a tag for a specific custom install you prefer.
Give it some attention, folks, and you won’t feel sorry afterwards,
As I have already mentioned (and the OP confirms) the major problem is if the screen doesn’t appear you have nothing to uncheck, so you get chrome by default because it is pre-checked to install.
I’m having related issue. Went to install Avast Free on a new laptop, after removing Norton bloatware. I chose the “recommended” installation, rather than custom. There was no indication that Google Chrome was going to be part of the recommended installation. Personally, I don’t mind having chrome installed, I use it on occassion. The problem I’m having is that the installation is stalled on the chrome installation. It’s been more than 30 minutes and the screen still says “installing Google Chrome… PLease wait this may take a few minutes…” It’s been that way since the beginning of installation, only change is the dots running across the screen. There’s a cancel button at the bottom right, but it does not work.
I could be wrong but I think if you are using WinPatrol Plus it would have caught the Chrome install and stopped the process until you click ok. There could be a timeout on this with WinPatrol Plus, I don’t know I have never left an install unattended for more than a couple of minutes and each time WinPatrol Plus would be there asking for my approval when I returned to the computer. I have yet to experience a timeout that will install a program since I have been using WinPatrol Plus.
This is a good example of why I have suggested that avast! add an approved program list feature to avast! in avast! 8 that would prevent the installation of all programs not on the user’s approved list of progames that they identify in avast!.
So even if the user misses an opt-out with regard to a program the progam still would not install unless the user specifically entered it into their approved program list.
We’re not talking about new installs, we’re talking about an upgrade.
Although I can’t speak for others, this isn’t, and wasn’t a small oversight that got lost in small print, or obscure check-box placement, nor was I given a “Custom Install” option as I was accepting an upgrade from an installation I had already customized awhile ago.
I’ve also done a few upgrades from then, to now and have never been asked by the Avast upgrade client if I wanted to install Chrome during an upgrade… on any of my upgrades.
I too like a few others in here have made a bad habit out of looking for this sort of activity during software installs, or upgrades. I was presented with no such option yesterday…
Which indicates to me that the upgrade either had issues and the issue was fixed with later upgrades/downloads which is why others saw a chrome opt out option, or the upgrade reacts differently on different systems. In either case its still a bit of a concern!
Does anyone know off hand if these Avast upgrade files are stored after an upgrade has finished in a temp folder, and what they’d be called?
I would be very interested to see some test results that show the comodo AV is as good as avast.
Just look at what avast offers in terms of shields etc and im sure comodo does not even come close.Ive actually used comodo myself in the past and i can assure you it does not protect as well as avast and it does not scan web traffic etc.it depends on its HIPS and without it comodo would seem pretty redundant. ;D
