Update (Basic)

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1
  1. When you download the avast program does the virus database come with it?
  2. In the Update (Basic) settings I see the default setting for the program is: Ask when update is available so why doesn’t the virus database have the same setting? I wish the default setting for the virus database was: Ask when update is available. I hope this gets changed in Avast 5.
2
  1. If you select update program it does the program updates and the definition updates as well
  2. You can easily change the update options under program settings if you wish

if I have misunderstood you please feel free to clarify it with me

3

  1. It does, but the version for download isn’t updated every day so there will be a small gap in the signature update. So a manual update or when the next auto update occurs it will do an incremental update so you are using the latest VPS version.

  2. This is because:
    a) the VPS signatures are incremental, so very small KBs rather than MBs and shouldn’t interfere with what you are doing.
    So there would be no need to set it to Ask, another advantage of leaving it at Auto is avast uses a trick to restrict the CPU% to 30% so it shouldn’t interfere with what you are doing, this isn’t the case with Ask or Manual as it is effectively manually initiated and would only do that if you weren’t busy.

b) the program updates are much larger and you wouldn’t want that to start automatically when you were busy. The ‘Ask’ option still checks for updates and pop-up a Notification of an update available so you are aware there is one. If you aren’t busy you can click the pop-up and the program update will proceed, if you are busy let the pop-up disappear and do a manual update when your have time.