Hi, all. Please welcome the newest version of Avast AV: 21.5 (21.5.2470)
Major public announcements
Fewer interruptions in fullscreen — When you’re running another app fullscreen, our antivirus will no longer open on top and interrupt you. We apologize if this happened to you! (And don’t worry, threat warnings will still appear, so you’ll always know about malware even while watching your favorite film)
Introducing Webcam Shield reminders — If you’ve configured Webcam Shield to automatically block or allow apps, we’ll now remind you of this when an app tries to access your webcam so you don’t sit around wondering why your webcam isn’t working. (For Premium Security only)
Updated privacy policies — We’ve updated our General Privacy Policy and other connected privacy policies. You can find them here
Bug fixes for:
Software Updater is giving us a headache these days - We had to temporarily remove this feature from Smart Scan to patch a few bugs, but users can still find and use it from their menu. We’ll be slowly rolling it back out to Smart Scan, so if you don’t see it there yet, please wait a few more days
We’ve updated our UI rendered CEF to a new version (chromium 90.0.4430.93) to patch known security flaws
Fixed issue with creating Rescue Disk for UEFI format (next to BIOS)
Other Rescue Disk improvements: fixed a bug that prevented Rescue Disk from starting, improved keyboard controls, etc.
Fixed a tray icon error that showed an issue notification despite everything being OK
Fixed a Firewall issue where driver aswNetHub.sys caused a BSOD
Fixed a leak of GDI objects
Fixed the AvastClear utility, which didn’t properly remove the antivirus from Windows Security Centre
…and a lot of other improvements we can’t disclose
As usual a big thanks goes to the team for yet another successful release!
How to install:
Update from your existing Avast version via Settings → Update → Update program
The update to V. 21.5 has re-introduced the Mail Shield bug which prevents the Windows Mail App syncing email accounts. Tested on two devices so far and both required disabling Mail Shield to restore functionality to the mail app.
Not good enough, avast.
Edit: Issue now also confirmed as present on two more devices, turning mail shield off resolves it.
Edit2: 18/06/21 - Updated to build 21.5.6354.675 and issue with Mail Shield is now resolved.
This appears to be a certificate issue. When I enable mail shields but disable IMAP / POP checking, I’m able to receive mail but not send mail. I need to figure out how to import the new certificate from Avast! I guess.
I can confirm. When enabling the MAIL shield but turning off IMAP scanning, I can receive mail. However, I cannot send mail, and Thunderbird reports an “unrecognized certificate” error.
Just updated to latest, but on the status page it keeps on saying important update available, when I click update now it shows it has the latest update. But still red status with exclamation mark. If I choose to ignore then the status goes green.
Dev-Info: [i]We were finally able to induce issue with “Important update available” info in UI of up-to-date product on our machines.
Can you please check this registry value?
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\AVAST Software\Avast\properties\settings\Common\ProgramUpdateAvailable=1
This value should be related to this issue. Please let me know if value is present in your registry. You can also manually change it to 0 (with disabled Self-Defense) as temporary workaround. It should help. We will try to fix it as soon as possible of course.[/i]
The Avast 21.5 free offline installer seems unchanged from the one I downloaded before the mail certificates issue was realised so I have to ask if that bug will still be installed if I run it. I routinely archive each offline installer. Perhaps I will give the one for Avast 21.5 a miss this month.
I would suspect that when using the installer it would also check for emergency/other updates.
Whilst saving a copy of the off-line installation file is wise I still saved the 21.5 off-line installation file), but you shouldn’t need to run that every time there is a program update available (I didn’t). So in this instance using the on-line installation file would appear to be the way to go if having done a manual program update, the build number isn’t the latest.
@loungehake, you should be ok, no need to wait til next month. I just (30 mins ago) downloaded the offline free installer and got the 675 version straight out of the box, so to speak. Only the normal restart, no repair/restart required.
