Just a quick question, do you think that Avast Free Edition is starting to intrude too much into your surfing habits?
Don’t get me wrong I think Avast Free Edition is an excellent antivirus solution, and I have used it for a number of years,
however, just lately it seems to be becoming noisy what with adverts and additional things added for our benefit that we may not necessarily
want or need as well as becoming much larger in size to download.
As a bit of history I used to use AVG Free until it became too bloated and slow and that is why I changed to Avast, I am starting to worry that
Avast may be heading the same way.
I like avast. Did you really think you would get a different answer?
avast has every right to advertise. They have to make a profit.
Bloated? No. Just added protection.
Intrusive? Not even close.
The biggest part of the program (if we’re talking about the download size / disk usage) belongs to virus definitions. Since detections are being added, this part grows - and will continue to grow, I’m afraid, unless we manage to persuade malware writers to get another job.
The second biggest is most likely the SafeZone - not installed/downloaded if you have the Free version.
The rest is quite small, compared to these two components, no matter what features are added.
I'm not seeing any slowdown in my browsing/surfing habits, so if you can expand the areas that you are experiencing intrusion.
For me it is not a big problem right now, I was just asking a general question as to whether anyone else had noticed a difference, in case I missed something, personally I have found the sandbox to be intrusive at times and the first thing I tend to do is reduce the amount of time the Avast popups stay on the screen from 20 secs to 5 secs, and turn off the sounds, but that’s just my personal preference.
From Avast’s point of view they have to cater for everyone from brand new computer users to seasoned users, so they have to strike some sort of balance, and of course the free edition has to be a “one size fits all” type of scenario, which suits me perfectly.
As a fairly advanced user I find that the additional protection offered by Avast Pro is not vital to me personally, but may well be vital to someone else
who may be a new user, I was a brand new user in 1996 and would have needed that additional protection then.
I think the question I should have asked is “Is Avast Free Edition becoming too bloated or slow?” In fact, I’ll change the topic title to reflect that from here on.
As a fairly advanced user you would certainly benefit from the advanced configuration options in avast aside from the general default settings for the protection (and performance balance) for the majority of users.
Most advanced users if anything generally bump up the scanning levels.
Most advanced users if anything generally bump up the scanning levels.
I guess so, but for me the default levels seem to work fine, so far, I have not had any actual virus problems
I do run separate spyware and adware scans just to be sure but they usually come up clean anyway which just proves
how good a job Avast is doing, as I said I think the product is great.
I suggest we keep this way to have download the most of the virus definitions within the setup file.
Other antivirus have chosen to deliver it without this database and updating it after installing. Consequence: the installed antivirus is not even close of the necessary protection… And, after all, you’ll need to download all the virus definitions later…
I know nobody cares but I have just uninstalled Avast (after years using and advocating the free version) and installed MS Security Essentials. The reason is simple: Avast is designed for a type of user who likes bells and whistles (the more of them, the better) while I need an antivirus that stays out of my way (the less bells and whistles, the better). And yes, I am aware Avast is probably better in resources usage, speed and detection rate. Unfortunately I must trade Avast efficiency with a GUI that hurts my eyes and with a set of features that I don’t know what they do or should do, when and why, so I never know if some behavior is expected or it is something wrong on my own settings or just a bug in Avast. Plus regular updates put my older machine on its knees at least twice a day.
Lorenzo, why don’t you keep avast! at default settings or ask for help to reduce even more the so called bells and whistles?
You don’t even need to open the interface regularly… What’s the problem with the GUI if you don’t need it to get protection?
By the way, we do care when anybody uninstalls avast!
When this topic first posted I would have responded by saying Avast is not too intrusive. However, in the past couple of months I think it is getting way too intrusive. It gobbles up to much CPU power on weaker computers. I’ve been a fan of Avast since they first offered their freeware, and I still think they do a good job. However, Microsoft’s Security Essentials has improved to the point where it does the job just as well without all the ads constantly popping up. So I reluctantly switched on my low powered laptop and have been happier with the performance. I may even switch my powerful desktop. Maybe the Avast company will listen and go back to it’s roots.
Funny thing, I came here a couple of days ago to complain Avast! was putting up ads WAY too much, ended up learning that there’s a bug where those SHOULD be update notifications. Then I was directed to some configuration options to change, which unfortunately it would not let me change without an uninstall and reinstall.
After all that dust settled, now Avast just stays out of my way… Exactly the tool you claim to be hoping for.
I wonder if people complaining Avast is too “bellsy and whistly” don’t work hard enough - and the effort is significant - to find all the options and understand what they are. I certainly hope not everyone has to uninstall and reinstall the product to make it work as I did.
Been using Avast steadily since late 2005, while the free version has gotten more options, but I feel the more options, the better the protection offered, the UI is easy to navigate once you know where everything is, not like your gonna be in the UI changing stuff a lot anyways. Scan speed is excellent, detection a lot better than some other free products on the market, Currently have it installed on Entire household of PC’s that I control and update, not one complaint from any other users of the machines at all. Support in the forum excellent as well.
Why I stay with Avast still to this day and plan to stay for a long time to come
