Your invasive popup just lost my work.

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Of all the companies that should understand best practices of software, I would think a security product would be one of them.

But apparently I was wrong.

Today I updated the Avast Client, and when prompted if I wanted to restart, I told it I would do it later. I then began writing in an online-submission space that does not allow copy-paste from another source.
Then, suddenly and unexpectedly the window focus changed to Avast’s restart dialog; in the midst of typing, I typed ‘y. [return]’ without being aware the focus had changed. Suffice to say, the computer began to restart with only faintest glimpse as to why.
That is unacceptable behavior for any program. Not even Windows is that aggressive with its restart prompts, sure they are in the foreground, but they don’t change focus.
You have options. You can make the task-bar flash, you can bring a window to the foreground without changing focus.
The worst part of this is that it had not even been a full hour since I dismissed the initial restart notice.

Fix it so this is never an issue again.

2

I think that if everything fails and the window get focus, the better would be the “no” answer as default. But not a program does that, because the correct procedure for the product and the computer is a reboot at that time. So, I think that, at least, it shouldn’t have a keyboard shortcut (ALT+Y) and be like an UAC question (Windows Update keeps the reboot question in system tray, for instance). Well, my thoughts as an user here…

3

there is a recommendation about the default mapping Enter==submit, Esc==close. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa511268.aspx#interaction
However avast should be careful with the “focus grabbing”. Need to check it…

4

Thanks for jumping Lukas.