Articles about Avast

A month ago, I wrote about how I felt Avast was ruining CCleaner, the excellent system cleaning software it took over when it acquired Piriform last year.

In Avast's short tenure, we've already seen CCleaner suffer from malware, bundled software, and pop-up ads. In my article headline I asked "what’s next?" Well, with a new version of CCleaner available to download, we now have the answer. Inevitably, it's not good.

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Security software firm Avast acquired Piriform -- the maker of several popular system utilities, including CCleaner -- last year. Things didn’t go too well from the off however, as shortly afterwards, it was revealed that CCleaner had been hacked and a dangerously modified version had been available to download for a number of weeks.

Avast was quick to point out Piriform’s IT systems were breached before it acquired the company, but it was still in charge when the infected build was released. That sort of thing is very unfortunate -- and even more embarrassing given the business Avast is in -- but it could be forgiven. Unfortunately, since then Avast seems to be working hard to alienate CCleaner’s devoted userbase.

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It's just a couple of days since Microsoft temporarily disabled Windows 10 April 2018 Update on PCs running Avast antivirus. Just as with certain SSDs, a compatibility issue was making the update problematic.

But now Avast says it has identified the issue and is working to push out an update to people that will avoid the problem. The company also has instructions for people whose computers have been left sitting in a blue screen state.

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New Windows 10 feature updates get tested thoroughly both internally at Microsoft and by Windows Insiders. However, with so many PC variations and third-party programs, it's all but impossible to identify and eradicate every potential issue. That's why as soon as a new big Windows update gets released we suddenly hear of previously undetected problems arising.

In the case of the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, or Windows 10 1803 as it’s also known, we’ve seen users reporting issues with Intel and Toshiba SSDs, and some upgraders have experienced a black screen with no icons -- something I initially encountered after upgrading to the Fall Creators Update last year.

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