Can anyone tell me why the VPS udates are around 200 MB in size since November/December?
I didn’t have my computer on between approximately Nov. 16 - Dec. 20 and when I went to do an update through Avast, the update was around 200 MB. That would take well over 10 hrs to download! Normally, even if I miss a few days or even weeks, the file size is no more than 10 or 16 MB.
Even if I go to the Avast VPS update page, the file size is over 200 MB.
What’s going on? Or what am I not understanding?
BTW, I haven’t done the update since I’m not sure why the file size is so huge. If this is the way the updates are going to be from now on, I’ll have to find another AV program.
I guess the download you are referring to is the update for avast itself (the application)
Depending on the version you have installed the update is around 200 Mb
e.g. the freeware version is 192.6 Mb
Can you be more specific as this generally won’t have happened since November/December ?
Also what avast version are you using, latest is 1.1.2253 ?
What operating system are you using ?
When you go there you are downloading the full virus database and not an incremental update that will be large but not this big.
Provided you have an internet connection and haven’t changed the avast update settings, then VPS updates should be automatic and incremental.
The full VPS database is changing each time as old detections for malware will be removed if it is not seen for a long time period.
If av vendors didn’t do so, a full database would be perhaps even several terrabytes large.
There was for a period of time that those trying to download the full VPS download for avast4.x had problems as it exceeded 200MB and that by all accounts caused issues with old systems being unable to handle a file in excess of 200MB.
My guess is that avast has optimised that download file size and is now much smaller.
Anyone using avast 4.x really is living on borrowed time, the end of support for win98 (and subsequently avast 4.8 ) has been going on for years. At some point in time avast 4.8 and its VPS updates simply aren’t going to work.
I’m the OP and you all seem to be missing my point.
Let’s try this again.
Prior to November/December 2015, a normal VPS update through the Avast program was less than 2 MB or so. I didn’t update daily so I would imagine the daily update would be less than 1 mb, I don’t know. I actually think it was around 550 KB, give or take a little. The longer I went without updating, the larger the update file size would be when I finally did update. So if I didn’t update for a whole month, the update would still be less than 25 mb.
So missing one month of updates would result in needing to download a vps file of around maybe 20 -25 mb. But in November/December 2015, something changed where the update is much larger at over 100 mb (instead of the 10 - 20 mb that it should’ve been). That’s never happened in my 5+ years of using Avast. NEVER!
I’m guessing most of you have no idea what I’m talking about because you probably use automatic updates and have high speed internet, so you probably have no idea what size the daily updates actually are. Downloading them through the Avast software doesn’t impact your internet speed like it does for me, so I’m highly aware of the update file sizes. I know this because I’m stuck on dialup (no other option) and have to set the updates on manual because of that.
Isn’t there someone here who knows what I’m talking about? I just want to know why the updates are so huge now? What changed?
I suggest we are missing the point, because it wasn’t particularly clear what you were doing, hence all of the answers related to the full VPS download.
Updates from the UI are generally incremental, but if you leave it a long time between incremental updates, then avast is likely to download the full VPS.
This would explain why your Update from the UI and that of downloading the full virus database are virtually the same.
Except that Avast 4.8 works just fine with Windows XP and Windows 7. Further, its virus signature files are identical to the ones used by the Linux version of Avast, which works just fine even on Linux openSUSE 13.2. So, both Avast for Windows and Avast for Linux can be kept up to date via the incremental Windows update. Finally, Avast 4.8 has been much less buggy than the later versions of Avast, which have on occasion caused STOP errors in Windows. For all of these reasons, I would like Avast 4.8 support to continue indefinitely.
Except that I am not requesting that new support be brought back for old stuff but that existing support be maintained for current stuff for an Avast version that works better than the latest Avast versions.
I suspect that won’t be available for long, since the old versions didn’t have all the popups and other application installs that pay the bills these days.