One of my friends is worried about updating Avast.

I told her its ok because Avast 5 uninstalls 4.8 and installs 5.0 but shes still a bit worried about what will happen.

 

Tell her she'll be just fine, that most antivirus programs and security programs in general un-install old version for new ones when major changes are made. Let her know that with security programs, due to their functions and changes they make to the system, it is sometimes not possible to install over a previous install, that it has to be done cleanly. It's a safety and stability measure basically. Tell her that she may like Avast 5 much better due to it being a bit more simplified in the GUI and that detection and effectiveness is just as good if not better than 4.8 .

There were problems at first with it, like all new versions of any software, but most issues have been solved and, if she needs help, the Avast forums are a few clicks away.

Guys, there's really no need for the "gee, this person must be stupid as hell" types of remarks. Believe it or not, there are still people out there that don't know about any of this stuff and aren't used to dealing with it. Once upon a time, as smart as some of us have become through learning, we were in the same boat.

 

i would tell her that its just cleaning out the left overs/ temp files so it can install it. it is what it is doing.

its common thing to see.

 

It is a legitimate concern. Any time a product has a major overhaul the potential for conflicts/bugs is there, even more so with new software. I always stand pat for awhile before I upgrade, as it gives time for many wrinkles to be ironed out.

People need to realize also that the people in the support forums complaining about various issues make up less than 1% of all end users. People don't stop by just to post "hey, what's up"... they're there because they're having problems, so that's all you hear about. It creates the illusion that it's an epidemic when really they're isolated incidents, and 99.7% of end users are having no such problems (and that figure might be low).

 

Absolute truth. I've been amazed at the many times I have seen a very irate or scared person come to a forum with what, to them, seems like an end of the world disaster, blaming this and that. And then, out of the blue, it happens...others start filing in with bashings and problems COMPLETELY unrelated to the program in the original complaint. It's like if one person has an issue with a program, then that program is responsible for everyone else's slowdowns, lockups, whatever. Psychology is strange.

 

There's a nice post about upgrade concerns and considerations on Avast forums.

OT P.S. Oh, and mods, don't take everything so damn seriously, there were actually a couple of good jokes in the posts you've deleted.