I cannot for the life of me get Avast FREE Antivirus on my computer. I tried downloading from Avast’s website, as well as from a few other sites and keep getting the same result: I download and the setup file says “Avast Free Antivirus”. I run the setup file and before it finishes installing my computer shuts down with an error screen and Windows restarts with the prompt for me to start in Safe Mode. I restart in normal mode and everything looks fine. I notice the “Avast Free Antivirus” shortcut icon on my desktop and I click on it. The program opens up and instead of it being the FREE version it is a 10 day “trial” of “Avast Pro Antivirus”! I do not want the PRO version because I do not want to end up paying for it. It seems a bit shady to advertise “Avast FREE Antivirus” when all you actually get is a 10 day trial of the Pro version instead. I registered my program on the Avast website and they emailed me a License Key that I was supposed to enter in the registration section of the program, which would supposedly give me another 12 months of free service. I tried entering the license key in the appropriate field and got an error message saying the license key is not valid. I want to give Avast a shot, but it is not going very smooth lol! I’m about to go back to using AVG Free, since I KNOW it’s free and setup is a piece of cake. Before I do that, does anyone have any idea why I’m having these issues with Avast?
- Download avast! Free Antivirus: http://files.avast.com/iavs5x/avast_free_antivirus_setup.exe
- Follow instructions: http://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility
- Reinstall avast! with the downloaded installer from point 1.
- Reboot.