Strange Avast popups

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

So as much trouble as I’ve had with Avast, I decided to give it another chance and downloaded the lastest version. It’s constantly popping up with ‘you gotta update this, you gotta update that’. Like a “critical update” for Adobe Air. So after a few days of this, and not seeing any notification about it anywhere else, including the Adobe site, I clicked on it. The installing window came up and then went blank for several hours. Is this safe to trust Avast with this?

Now when I boot the machine, Avast popup says, “Your Avast Security Report: 300,000 files have been scanned in the last 30 days. Want to know how many are infected? Click here” This sounds more like an irresponsible scam to me rather than in antivirus program.
Then it says, these sofware updates are CRITICAL. Install them now. Before, it came up with this and mentioned what the updates were. I looked all over the Internet, including the host website - and no word whatsoever about it. This time Avast mentioned no specific updates. I’m very leery about this.

2

Seems like your completely misunderstanding Avast. The lasted Avast has a software updater tool. Keeping software up to date is cruital to staying malware free. Especially Java and Flash. So Avast was doing you a favor and informing you of this. Your last statement is Avast giving you a monthly report. Norton does this also. If you do not like it you can turn it off.

3

The only problem i have with the software updater is that programs cannot be manually added so they can be updated.
When i used it,it only updated the browser and flashplayer which i can do manually anyway.

I uninstalled it at this point as in its present incarnation it is fundamentally useless.
With the ability to update programs i manually add added it may be considered useful.

Thanks.