Stop spamming me!

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

The new version of Avast is spamming me regularly. Just received this pop-up:

Happy Halloween - Watch this amazing video [snip] .... Watch it, like it, share it!

I can’t find anywhere in Settings to turn off this annoying behavior. Any suggestions please?

2

Disable the panel after update.
avast > Settings > Update > Details

3

None of the options in that setting are related to this annoying spam behavior. Am I missing something? Thanks.

4

Well, I’m not sure. Can you post a screenshot of the message?

5

What avast version do you have ?
The latest version is 9.0.2008, resolves some issues with the auto update notification popup.

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The popup is actually meant to be the auto update notification (check your avastUI > Settings > Update) and you will see that an auto update has just taken place. Or right click the avast tray icon and select about avast!. It appears that these tips/ad popups are piggybacked onto the auto update notification popup and this looks like it messes up the display and sound for the auto update notifications.

If you browse the forums you will see several topics relating to a known bug about updates.

  1. no auto update notification popup (commonly displays an avast! tip - FB Privacy, instead).
  2. no audio voice over for the auto update.
  3. the popup delay timings don’t appear to work either.
    These tips popups have in the past been piggybacked with the auto update update notification, so the only way to get rid of them would be to disable the auto update notification, which if you want the update notification (when it works correctly) would remove everything.
6

I dismissed it, so no. But it contained exactly what I wrote - apart from the bit I snipped which was just similar to the spam I quoted.

I have 9.0.2008.

I’ve now unchecked ‘Show notification box after update’. I’m happy with that solution. But good to know it’s a recognised bug and not Avast going down the bait / switch / spam route.

Thanks for your help.

7

You’re welcome.

Since you have 9.0.2008, this shouldn’t be related to the bug I mentioned as that is meant to resolve that. But it wouldn’t remove any tips/ads piggybacked to the auto update notification.

I haven’t seen this particular Halloween one you mention or if I did, it was so unremarkable I didn’t notice.

You could dial down the duration of the auto update notification to 1 or 2 seconds (0 isn’t valid), avastUI > Settings > Appearance - Popup Duration. That way you still get the short popup, but importantly the audible notification of the update.

8

I guess I might have upgraded after seeing that Halloween spam. Not 100% sure.

Even a 1 second pop-up is distracting and I’ve disabled sound notification for updates. I’m happy for it to all happen automatically in the background and leave me in peace!

Thanks again for your help - and ‘Tech’.

9

You’re welcome.