Free Avast 2014 adding advertisement on outgoing emails

[David]

I just updated my Free Avast to the current version, which is 2014. I noticed when I sent out emails, Avast would attach an advertisement to the email, which in the past it has not done before.
See my example below.

Banner.JPG

I looked online on how to remove this or to change the setting to remove this option and I did not find any, but I stumbled across the way to do it on my own. See the solution below.

How to remove Avast advertisement from emails_Page_1.jpg

How to remove Avast advertisement from emails_Page_2.jpg

[David]

How to remove Avast advertisement from emails_Page_3.jpg

[a nameless entity]

Whoa! You have got to be kidding me! Avast did this? I am dumbfounded. I trusted these guys. Thanks for the warning.

And perhaps I should in some ways consider myself lucky? Read on:

I just came here to cry in my beer that my PC was broken. The update to Avast 2014 Free that I tried to do last night failed miserably. ( I thought at the time that I was only doing a program update to verion 8. I was unaware that 9 even existed.)

Avast is now so completely broken that it cannot repair itself, cannot be updated, and cannot be uninstalled from my PC. It seems that ASW Rundll.exe is so broken that I cannot even remove the damn program via control panel. I have submitted a ticket to Avast. Let's see if they can help me.

I downloaded the last version of Avast 8 from filehippo. I am unhappy with this site, because it was a bit trickier than than some others. The correct download button is in the upper right corner of your screen. The other two logical looking ones tried to put some "utility" program and a tool bar onto my PC. I refused the downloads, but Malware Bytes found a partial PUP from the little tool bar and removed it. So be careful if you want to go back to verion 8 folks!
Perhaps someone here knows a more reliable file download site that is safer to use?

Oh yes, and I am currently without any kind of anti virus protection at the moment, and will be limiting my browsing to known good sites.

Think twice about any upgrades folks, and do not update the program just yet. Only update the definitions file.

[a nameless entity]

Well I stand behind what I said in my post above about not rushing to upgrade.

However filehippo let me down. Despite carefully selecting the last version of Avast 8 I got the new Avast 9 instead. I retried this morning and the same thing happened again.

I gave up the idea of staying with Avast 8 because the Avast technical team answered my plea for help via a support ticket very politely and helpfully. (Even though I am only using the "Free" version.)
So I decided to try version 9. If it slows down this rig too much I will go and get Avast 8 from somewhere else and try installing that instead. But so far so good. Avast 9 doesn't seem any worse than the old 8 at this point.

Thank you David for making this thread. It has been a big help.
The first thing I did after installing Avast 9 was to follow your instructions.
(I also ticked the box that flags any incoming mail with the message *VIRUS* should one be found. I thought that might be a good thing for me to try.)

[David]

You are welcome a nameless entity. I am glad that I was able to be helpful in a good way.

[Hermskii]

Nameless, I dare you to let me remote into your PC and fix it. I do this stuff all day long. I work at a helpdesk 9 hours a day doing nothing but fixing computers remotely and talking people through fixes if I can't remote into their systems because the are too messed up to connect to. 1 out of every 100 has to be sent in for direct hands on assistance. ! dare you! You know I'd love to get your PC rocking and rolling again right?

[a nameless entity]

Thanks Herm, I am indeed tempted to avail myself of your help, but I dread spending an entire afternoon fooling around with a hard drive that should really be taken out into the back yard and shot, then given a decent burial.

I'd rather get my hands on a new old stock Western Digital hard drive of the kind used 10 years ago. My brother says that these old (ATA? Is that the correct designation?) hard drives are getting hard to find. I don't want a Seagate, and will not suffer a Maxtor. But a new 80 gig or larger Western Digital hard drive with a brand new install of Windows XP on it that I could just plug into my PC to replace drive C:\ sounds more to my liking.

Is that a more practical idea?

[Hermskii]

No.

You asked.

You should let me fix it.

[Dr.Flay]

Think back a bit.

There was a time when it was standard for all your email to be scanned, and marked with the version of the engine and virus definitions.
It was intended to visually help people decide if an email was safe.

This sig does not inspire confidence as it could be out of date.
Blatant advert

[David]

You know, as I came across another "program error" on my computer within a couple days (the first one was my network magic program seemed to have became to have a problem a couple days ago and I un-installed it from my computer). This time it was my Adobe Photoshop Deluxe program. I double clicked on it and it opens.... and then within a few seconds it closes. I tried it again and again and it had the same out come. I did not understand it........ Why are the programs on my computer turning to be impotent????

Why am I including on this topic? The answer is coming............


I felt as though I would need to un-install it and re-install the program again but then I decided to stop the protection of my Free Avast and run Adobe Photo Deluxe and it worked fine. It seems that Avast was shutting down my program and most likely the Network Magic program as well, even though I did not test my theory with Network Magic.

So I had to go into the settings, under the active protection and add an exclusion to the file system shield for Adobe Photo Deluxe and it worked fine after that....

Irritating.

[Dr.Flay]

Strange !
You would think it would be fine with a program as popular as Photoshop.

You could try profiling it with "Dependency Walker" and see what it stops on, though your solution is easier.

[a nameless entity]

Whoa! You have got to be kidding me! Avast did this? I am dumbfounded. I trusted these guys. Thanks for the warning.

And perhaps I should in some ways consider myself lucky? Read on:

I just came here to cry in my beer that my PC was broken. The update to Avast 2014 Free that I tried to do last night failed miserably. ( I thought at the time that I was only doing a program update to verion 8. I was unaware that 9 even existed.)

Avast is now so completely broken that it cannot repair itself, cannot be updated, and cannot be uninstalled from my PC. It seems that ASW Rundll.exe is so broken that I cannot even remove the damn program via control panel. I have submitted a ticket to Avast. Let's see if they can help me.

I downloaded the last version of Avast 8 from filehippo. I am unhappy with this site, because it was a bit trickier than than some others. The correct download button is in the upper right corner of your screen. The other two logical looking ones tried to put some "utility" program and a tool bar onto my PC. I refused the downloads, but Malware Bytes found a partial PUP from the little tool bar and removed it. So be careful if you want to go back to verion 8 folks!
Perhaps someone here knows a more reliable file download site that is safer to use?

Oh yes, and I am currently without any kind of anti virus protection at the moment, and will be limiting my browsing to known good sites.

Think twice about any upgrades folks, and do not update the program just yet. Only update the definitions file.

OMG I just don't believe this. Avast has done it again. Totally messed up. Caused me many of the really nasty kind of BSOD's that scare the heck out of any non PC geek. At first I thought it was my fault. I saw that the program had a new version in the manual update window I had opened. This is no big deal usually. You just run it like any other update and the program as well as the definitons files gets updated. Well, when Avast wanted to restart my PC, I said NO because I wanted to look at something else first. Afterwards I did the reboot through the start button, and went to dinner while it was working on that. 3 hours later after dinner and TV, I returned to the PC and saw the major error kind of BSOD.

Anyway after using Avasts own uninstaller and reinstalling, the damn PC kept going to the BSOD. I finally figured out that it's AVAST that's the problem, not anything I did. So shame on you Avast.
At least I had the presence of mind while working in safe mode to redownload the uninstaller since it disappeared from its folder after use the 1st time.

Oh and btw, I now have Google Chrome on my PC. The latest version of Avast Free did not have any way to deselect its installation nor did I see any notes that I would get it. Only once the reinstall was underway did I see that Chrome was being put onto my PC. Am I pissed off? You bet! How dare they?!? If I had wanted Chrome I would have gotten it myself already.

As it stands now I have a running PC again, but no anti virus on it. And the new version of Avast was so nice (once I tweaked it as David suggested) up until it did this.

No web browsing for me in the mean time, I've only come here to let you guys know that there's trouble with the newest program version again.

[Pium]

Hi all .

Just some ideas from my side :

We all know an up to date antivirus program is necessary on a Computer .
I really recommend to make a deepscan of your system , every virus and trojan will deactivate your antivirus and hide .
If you are not a cumputerexpert ask someone you know in person .
You can complete uninstall software if you know how to use the registry in Windows .

Only install software from original author and from the official website ! If possible check the checksum which is available from author!

Even when there is a free version of Avast available , its commercial software and they have to earn money .The free version is working ok but when it puts advertising in your mails and slows down your computer something went wrong .


Maybe you can try an GPL/Open source programm . GPL coders have not an primary finacial interest ,so they work without pressure of making money .....
http://www.clamav.net/lang/en/about/


Hope you find an satisfying solution for your computerproblems .

Pium

[Hermskii]

My AV is avast free and it works great!

[a nameless entity]

Well I'm starting to get a bit p.o.'d with the Avast help desk. I still haven't even gotten an automated reply, which I should have had by now. And the email I sent has not bounced back to me, so they must have received it.

My brother suggested in the mean time that I try a virus scan at the Kaspersky or Norton websites, just to make sure that there's no virus that was attacking my Avast installation. I suppose I should do that. I recall that Panda anti virus used to have a good reputation for a free system scan too.

I'm wondering if Avast has been inundated with cries for help due to some program glitch, or if mine is an isolated case.