Look, I don’t like it either, but calling any pop-up “virus-like” is just silly and makes the people who stand against such things a lot less credible, lets stick to the facts and save the theatrics.
The pop-up, despite being appearing while you browse, is in no way connected to your browser.
it is relevant. advertisements from avast can be stopped by disabling features as shown in the screenshot posted. (including all advertisement pop-ups, not inclusive of virus definition pop-ups)
well it is un-intrusive in my opinion because it is highly unlikely u will see such stuff in like 3 months, even possibly longer period.
on top of that, theres the option to disable it completely as stated above.
There’s no such thing as something for nothing. avast! offers a “free” version only in the hopes that you’ll pay them for extra features.
And contests absolutely ARE a kind of ad. They get their name out there in return for a very small chance of winning something. Putting the avast! and Mac names in your head is worth more to them than whatever they’re “giving away”.
I came to the Avast forum specifically because of this pop-up. Contest, ad, free money, whatever; I’m not really happy about it.
I’ve been using Avast for years, and I put it on all the computers I setup for friends, family, and co-workers. I’ve been a huge fan and advocate. But I find any unnecessary advertisement (yes, even one for a new Avast product) spam. One spam leads to another spam. I didn’t sign up for ad-ware. Countless people I’ve setup with Avast have upgraded to more complete versions, but Avast is going to lose me as a sales platform if this becomes a regular thing. I don’t want Avast popping up information that’s not relevant to protecting my computer.
That said, an unobtrusive message about this contest at the bottom of an informative pop-up wouldn’t have upset me. It’s popping up a message that has the sole intent of getting me to spend my money that upsets me. Left unchecked, this is the path to full-blown ad-ware. If it keeps up I will start installing another product on people’s computers. Period. Too many products have gone down that road for this to not worry me.
@Quatrix: ur right about that, technically these are all ads in some form or another. but it is my opinion that i do not really take it as any ad (or rather it is an ad worthy to be shown to me. so it becomes an offer.)
moreover, i definitely dun mind providing avast with free advertisement for the protection it gives me.
Where does it ask you to spend money?
I doubt it will “keep up” or escalate…have been with this product for a few years now, enough to know that while they do this occasionally send a toaster pop-up for sales, new products, or in this case a FB giveaway, it has never become the norm.
Going on 3 years with Avast! now, I can count the number of times I have seen something like this on one hand. So they keep it well within reasonable limits, or at least to me they are reasonable.
@nicholsona: u can off the feature as state previously.
to me, all other free antivirus except panda cloud & MSE has more ads than avast.
eg. avg has an ad everytime u open the graphic user interface
avira has a big splash screen every day at least once per day…
zonealarm has a smaller splash screen occasionally
the rest of the free are not worth mentioning…
How else do you expect avast to let there users know about new products ???since this is your first visit here so you wouldn’t have found out about it any other way than the popup, and at least now you’ll be able to tell anyone you know with a mac - hey i know of a good antivirus for your system! As far as the contest goes well that’s just a bonus for those that wish to participate.
I really gripe’s me that user’s complain over such small things, haven’t you got anything better to do with your live’s than complain about one add to support a company who’s software you’ve been using ( and most people use for free )
If people cant handle one ad every few months then i say move on, try “avira” you’ll get ad’s everyday, try MSE you wont get ad’s and you wont get the extra protection that avast gives either >:(
Well, I agree with you in part. On one hand, people tend to make a big fuss about these things, act out in overdramatic fashion, like all of a sudden everyone is someone who “installs avast! on many systems”. No offense to the people who do install Avast! for people, but sometimes I think people are trying to make themselves and their opinions “bigger” than they really are. And thats only one facet of it.
But on the other hand, other companies have gone down a dark road that started just like this. So while it might seem a lot of people are jumping the gun, many are acting on past bad experiences. And it is good (at least in part) that reactions to this are often so swift and venomous, because it gives a good barometer of users and how they would act if such tactics escalated or became regular practice. Because I do not think either of us or most regular forum users ever want this to degenerate to something like Avira is with marketing. 
I’m here to voice my opinion about something Avast did, and tell them I didn’t like it, and it makes me trust them just a little less. That’s my sole purpose. Personally, I don’t need you to question that. I’m not asking you what you think about my trusting them less; I don’t care. Frankly, it’s not your business. If you want to come on here and say you’re fine with this; that’s your business. I’m not here to question your thoughts on the subject. Frankly, it’s none of my business. So how about we all let each other state our feelings without calling each other’s judgment into question? I know it’s the internet, but not everything has to be about who is right and who is wrong. You don’t need to chime in and tell us what you think about every stupid little thing. So please, let me say my piece in peace. Thank you. I’m done.
I’m with you David, I learned the hard way and signed up for FB a couple of years back and BOY WAS I SORRY… Privacy is worth something which is a concept that is totally antithetical to the concept of FB unfortunately…
+1 Thank you Bob,
If you don’t want the specific pop-ups in Avast, you can change them in Settings.
Jack
@nicholsona
If you look closer, I am not For this, I am Against it. I don’t know here you got the idea that I was criticizing you, when all I did was try and explain that if you were afraid of this becoming more frequent, you were probably worrying over nothing.
Wandering o/t here with regard to the ads, I’m one more who won’t touch Facebook. My wife recently got internet access when I switched to a wireless router-modem, and does have a Facebook acct (mostly to play games) and is virtually computer-illiterate, so my son and I set her up with as much protection as possible which she wouldn’t have a clue how to modify. Plus we’ve disabled all sharing and similar functions so we don’t really have a LAN, just a time-sharing common internet connection. And she knows enough to yell for help if she sees any kind of warning or error message.
Dude, you don’t know anything about me. Don’t tell me what I knew and I didn’t. You don’t know how many computers I have and what versions I use on which ones. You don’t know if I knew about the Mac version before or after the popup, and you don’t know if I know about the Android version on my phone. You don’t have any idea how much I do or do not support this company.
What I hate, is people who think it’s their job to go around and tell the world what they think about everyone else. I hate people who have nothing better to do all day than pass judgment on other people’s posts. I say it’s time for you to move on to something more constructive than insulting people and telling them what products they should or shouldn’t use and what opinions they should or shouldn’t voice.
It’s not your business. Stop passing judgment based on ignorance. :
+1
Sorry if I miss-read you then. It was the question about what they were trying to sell me that made me thing you were being critical. I started to answer that question, but then decided that I shouldn’t have to justify my interpretation of the popup ad, and I went an entirely different direction. So again, I apologize if that was a bit misdirected.
+1 Nicholsona
I’m here because of the popup and I’m not happy about it. I find myself chasing around the Internet to see if my system (and by extension the others I have set up with Avast) are compromised.
I’m also less than impressed with the attitude of some of the established members here and how they responded to the concerns Nicholsona brought up.
Avast’s use of such a spam like promotion has reduced the trust I have in it’s product. I have jumped through hoops to get here and post so I put it to you that I believe there are plenty of others who will have just lost faith in Avast and decide to try another AV route.
If you going wireless you’d better be configured with a password as I’m sure you already know. Absent a password configuration you much more vulnerable than wired.
As to the “protection” in FB, there are so many levels to consider and I’ve noticed that no matter what “friends” at some levels have to be open if I recall correctly (I can see why to some extent because if all levels are virtually “turned off” so to speak then the point of FB is defeated actually).
Im not proclaiming to know you as i can only go on what people post and when people start complaining about these things especially when the ad was not selling anything it’s just a notification i see it really as just whinging for the sake of it.
I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on who is the ignorant one as most people know that some form of advertising come’s with just about all softwares these days :