The new Firewall is an absolute joke. I can’t understand how come someone at Avast, an AV company who has provided users with so many features and options over the years along with good protection, can come up with something like this.
This is the first Firewall as far as I can remember that doesn’t give users the ability to manually create their own rules for applications.
You can say, once it’s executed you’ll be able to…bla bla bla. That’s just a bad excuse, so please don’t play that card.
This shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Pretty sure many Avast devs who were working on the new Firewall didn’t like the idea either. Whoever came up with this terrible idea should feel bad about it. Paid users don’t pay to have fewer features than the basic yet solid Windows Firewall. You can’t justify the decision in any way. Even free users don’t deserve this because this is something even Windows Firewall has.
So, I request you to give users the feature that the old Firewall has. Make this change soon. Release a beta maybe within a week or couple and then release to the stable. Everyone will be happy once again.
- https://support.avast.com/en-ww/article/Antivirus-Firewall-Application-Rules
- Additional features (screenshot) are available in the paid products.
@Mr. Avast
In essence, you still have the same controls you just have to address them in a different way.
ridicule is not enough…I still try to understand the mind of the guy who designed this…it must surely be a 12 year old child.
You’re acting like one. Things have changed, simply learn to adapt. Life changes daily.
Mr. Avast
Yes, you are correct.
I also voiced my opinion on the situation I see here:
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=309315.msg1667378#msg1667378
That doesn’t mean that the change wasn’t bad, or that people have to like it, though.
Example:
We got our current health situation in the world.
Everything changed in people’s lives to worse over the course of the last year or two…
People do have to adapt. Because there’s no other alternative.
But was that change in the world and people’s lives any good?
Of course not.
In the case of Avast Firewall, as I already explained in more detail in my other post,
there are good alternatives. Even the default Windows Firewall is a more solid alternative.
And since there are good alternatives, then why anyone would want to adapt to something worse?
And if Avast Firewall will become impossible to disable as a component in the future, it would just mean a need to find an alternative antivirus.
@the invisible one,
You’re entitled to your opinion. They aren’t everyone’s.
The assumption your making about not being able to opt out of the firewall is just that,
an assumption. If you don’t like the firewall, you have choices.
I find it works verywell. Not all of us are looking for complications.
Sometimes it’s nice when something just works and does what it’s supposed to do.
Not complications, but control.
I undestand that for many people simplicity is more important than a full control.
But there could be a simple / advanced mode split so that every users can get the level of control they need.
Technically, it’s exactly what Windows Firewall is: by default it just does its job, but every user can go into the detailed settings and have the huge flexibility in adding or editing the rules.
By the way, I’ve seen reports that the new simplified firewall didn’t stop some newly downloaded porgrams from accessing internet.
And since there’s no way to manually add programs just in case, it would mean that there’s no guarantee that it would stop every theoretically malicious program in time.
I’m not sure about it deserving that much trust to auto-detect applications, since it seems unreliable.
There needs to be a manual way to add rules, too. Also, editing or deleting existing rules are the basic abilities of almost any decent firewall, so why over-simplify that? I don’t understand it. But oh well.
Your opinion, your computer, ultimately your decision.
Advanced/Expert users can set the firewall to “ASK” for full control.
I agree with what users “n33h11” and “InvisibleMan” said above. I already fully explained what I feel about the Firewall. So no, please don’t justify the ridiculous decision Avast made just because you’re a long time user of it.
Avast went backwards with the new Firewall and also how they’re spamming paid users with renew and other popups, looks like the whole of Avast is going backwards. I reinstalled Windows 11 the other day and gonna stick to Microsoft Defender for the time being, which provides good protection anyway but has some other issues. I’m also an expert and sensible user, so malware protection isn’t something that worries me at all. I’ll monitor the forum for changes in Avast, it’s firewall and its treatment of paid users. Maybe I’ll get bored and install Avast again soon.
Maybe you need to change your forum User Name
Totally agree.
Wait…what…I thought Bob was Mr. Avast. ;D
@bob3160
@DavidR
@Asyn
I think the reason for users beginning to complain about various questionable changes, is because of the situation Avast in general is.
It always was clear (and I myself had opportunity to compare them over the years):
Avast Free Antivirus was always better than Norton’s antiviruses, for various reasons.
And users are getting worried over all such changes to the worst, because:
1. Avast is being bought by Norton.
2. The history of Norton’s products shows how they got worse and worse over time, plus they became like a bloatware.
My friends actually got rid of Norton because of all those issues and began using Avast in recent years.
But, now we see the worrisome signs of Norton’s interference. An upcoming super-oversimplified Avast One is a proof of that too.
It just looks like Norton didn’t like having a competition, that was actually a great antivirus: Avast.
So they bought to bring it down.
It’s not the first product in history that Norton bought and ruined afterwards.
Naturally, users see changes in Avast they don’t like and feel like it’s the beginning of the end.
I actually have to agree with that, too.
Because “Mr. Avast” gives the impression of it being someone from the Avast Team. ;D
You only have to look to the left of posts to see the user status, only avast employees will have Avast Team next to their posts.
However, some of the Avast Überevangelists will have made Avast Team contacts over the years, they may also have communication channels, to get information and report issues occurring in the forums.
One thing is clear…Norton will end Avast in no time.
It started by destroying Premium. Whoever paid got it because the guy who was always free and never gave a penny to the company has almost the same functions as a subscriber. So the question remains: why become a payer?
Then they take something that worked and literally screw it up, take a working service and be done with it in a matter of seconds.
If this isn’t Norton’s rotten hand I don’t know what it is anymore… rather Avast was sold to a Chinese company than an American one and had that end.
I could see that work, as way to donate/contribute,
if Avast simply remained a great antivirus it has always been for many years.
Plus, I wouldn’t mind at all if all that free users get would be the very basic mimimum protection core:
Web Shield
File Shield
As a free avast user, I never had any need for anything else, and that’s very simple actually. (And never got infected after switching to Avast many years ago)
Everyhing else is extraneous, especially for free users. (e.g. since a malicious script in a web mail would be stopped by Web Shield, and a malicious file downloaded from a mail, would be stopped when run by File Shield, why need Mail Shield anyway? Or Behavior Shield that often created more problems with false detections for me than protected me, when I tried it for a while. Etc.)
And if all other things (while remaining optional) would be only available for Premium,
it would both make a lot more sense, and
also would make free users happier, because they wouldn’t need to worry whenever some big changes happen to a lot of other components, since they don’t use them.