Avast! Emergency Update

D

dora.smith.e

Having so many computers, I have different versions of Avast (free),

mainly 7, 8, and 9. I used to always update to the latest program

version (not to be confused with engine and virus definitions which I

always update). But I noticed that the newer program versions have extra

protection for computer noobs which interfere with experienced users.



And Avast has out of the blue has upgraded to the latest program version

without my permission. Since I rarely reboot my machines, sometimes when

I do Avast will pop up saying installing Avast to the latest program

version. And I like to walk away from my computers if I reboot and get

some coffee or something. Of course, if Avast is updating the program it

pops up a window asking if it is ok to install Google Toolbar and Google

Chrome. The problem is, if you are not there, it will pick it is ok on

its own after xx amount of minutes. Damn them, I hate Google anything!



Anyway today on this machine AnVir Task Manager, warned me that Avast!

Emergency Update wants to run in startup. I know what it is suppose to

do, as it is suppose to override the regular updater (just in case it

gets corrupted or infected). And while I have seen this before, I think

this is how Avast sneaks the latest program version on some of my

computers. Although I wouldn't know for sure until I rebooted, which

could be months from now. Then I would have forgotten that I allowed

this service to run. So this time I blocked it with AnVir. Does anybody

know more about this than I do?



--

Bill

Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows Live Mail 2009 v14

Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 8 Pro w/Media Center

Avast Emergency Update?

Bill, I don't believe there is any such thing. This could be malware trying to fool you. Ignore it. If Avast needs to do an update it will run it itself - and you're right, it won't ask you.

dora
 
K

Ken Springer

I don't think so. Computer programs are designed to repeat certain
actions reliably. In a case like this, with several identical
installations, without any outside interferance by me, they would all
act the same. I've installed Avast on dozens of systems, and none of
them have or have had Chrome installed on them.

All this discussion of "It does it for me" and "It doesn't do it for me"
and placing the cause on Avast is a waste of time until you know what is
triggering it, and why.

Just because all the installations *may* be the same, Bill has not said
they are in his case, it should not be assumed the hardware is 100%
identical.

For all we know at the moment, it could be a particular combos of OS,
hardware, and software installs that trigger it.

Hopefully, Bill keeps after this and figures out what triggers the
emergency update. Until then, everything is just speculation.


<snip>



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 24.0
 
B

BillW50

On 2/22/2014 7:15 PM, (e-mail address removed) wrote
Avast Emergency Update?

Bill, I don't believe there is any such thing. This could be
malware trying to fool you. Ignore it. If Avast needs to do
an update it will run it itself - and you're right,
it won't ask you.

Maybe you will believe Avast themselves then:

I think I need to explain this one so we can hopefully avoid
another fiasco like with previous EmUpdate. Although I cannot
explain the issue in detail, I can say that we had very few
options in this regard and had to forcibly update some of our
users to avast! 2014.

This can only happen if you use Windows 8 as Microsoft
identified issues with its updates related to avast!. You can
imagine they were very adamant and the only option given to us
was to update the affected users to avast! 2014 (specifically to
build 2014.9.0.2008 or higher). Builds 2014.9.0.2006 and
2014.9.0.2007 should have already received the necessary fix by
EmUpdate, so no action is necessary there.

I am very sorry for any inconvenience caused, the affected users
should have received information pop-up about necessity of the
update few days back to allow them to update on their leisure
but it just wasn't enough.

If you are worried about Chrome offer, you can easily untick
those offers in "Complete" screen after a system reboot.

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=141423.msg1027968#msg1027968
 
N

Nil

Hopefully, Bill keeps after this and figures out what triggers the
emergency update. Until then, everything is just speculation.

I don't question that the emergency update happens. I'm certain that it
does. What I don't believe is his claim that Avast has recently
installed Google Chrome out of the blue without asking.

There's quite a bit of information on the 'net about the Avast
Emergency Updater. I wasn't interested in it enough to read all that
stuff, but I did find out that Avast installs a Scheduled Task that
runs it daily. I've disabled the task for now to see what happens.
 
B

BillW50

I don't question that the emergency update happens. I'm certain that it
does. What I don't believe is his claim that Avast has recently
installed Google Chrome out of the blue without asking.

It happened to Windows 8 Avast users who have their machines set to not
update the program recently (one claimed he happened to him and he is
using Windows 7). Anybody running an older version of Avast, Avast
forced some machines to update the Avast program in the background
without the users knowledge. And the next time one rebooted, Avast
installed the latest Avast program and supposedly flash up the window
about whether to install Chrome or not.

Well I didn't know Avast was doing this and I rebooted for some reason
and left the room. When I came back, Chrome was installing. Later a
second Windows 8 machine of mine was doing the same, except I didn't
leave the room (as I was expecting the same funny business from Avast).
And the box showed up and I unticked the options on this machine and the
box just vanished. Others too have reported similar things.

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=141423.msg1027968#msg1027968
There's quite a bit of information on the 'net about the Avast
Emergency Updater. I wasn't interested in it enough to read all that
stuff, but I did find out that Avast installs a Scheduled Task that
runs it daily. I've disabled the task for now to see what happens.

This Avast Emergency Updater is a backdoor that allows Avast to install
anything they want to on your system at any time they want to. One IT
guy on the forum was up in arms about this. He stated they can't have
somebody else have free control over their computers. And frankly, I
totally agree.

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=140730.0

Also in the 15 pages about this, some has noted that this Avast
Emergency Updater doesn't phone home to an Avast server, but to a Google
server. If this is true, I see this has a huge security risk. Some
hacker could hack into this server and they could install almost
anything on any Avast users machine that hasn't manually disabled Avast
Emergency Updater. Of course some doesn't trust Google much either.
 
S

s|b

There is a whole thread on this nonsense (7 pages worth).

Topic: Google Chrome installed without my permission, very annoyed!
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=125379.0

Every time there are users who claim Google Chrome is installed and
every time an equal number of users say it isn't. (I belong to the
latter.)
P.S. I have intentionally set "Program Updates" to MANUAL...
which is supposed to tell avast neither to check for program
updates nor to automatically install them. I find it ironic
that so called "emergency updates" --- in this case, merely a
"migratory preparation" --- can defy this setting.

There are places where I've set avast! up to automatic updates. On my
system, settings were to 'Ask when an update is available'. In both
cases avast! failed. It didn't download automatically where it should
have (even after several weeks) and in my case, a new version of avast!
was installed without asking. My only choice was to reboot. My settings
are now 'Manual update' and I'm very curious what's going to happen with
the next program update.

I know about this thread; I even responded to it (under another handle).
IIRC the thread was initially about a startup item that wouldn't go away
by itself. The same thing was happening to me and I "solved" it by
uninstalling avast! (using their uninstall tool) and installing it
again.

However, reinstalling created another problem. The whole process froze
on AvastEmUpdate.exe. Apparently, my HOSTS file from mvps.org was to
blame. I still don't know which domain, so I temporary replaced it with
the default HOSTS file and the install went fine. avast! is capable of
creating a back-up of your settings, so a reinstall wasn't such a PITA.

I also remember that avast! officials only reacted /once/ in this thread
<http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=140730.msg1025160#msg1025160>
 
B

BillW50

s|b said:
Every time there are users who claim Google Chrome is installed and
every time an equal number of users say it isn't. (I belong to the
latter.)

I have no doubt and until just recently, I would have been totally on
your side. But those that received the program update (generally Windows
8 users) running an older program version, which gets their program
update (when you tell it manual install or notify only) through the
emergency update backdoor will be the only ones who will probably see
Chrome automatically installed on reboot (you will be not notified that
you need to reboot either). Otherwise I don't think it will ever happen.
There are places where I've set avast! up to automatic updates. On my
system, settings were to 'Ask when an update is available'. In both
cases avast! failed. It didn't download automatically where it should
have (even after several weeks)

I heard of this before and I never saw it on any of my machines.
Although I have seen it on machines that had malware on it. I am not
saying it has to have malware, I just never seen it myself.
and in my case, a new version of avast! was installed without asking.
My only choice was to reboot. My settings are now 'Manual update' and
I'm very curious what's going to happen with the next program update.

That is that blasted backdoor emergency update. As Avast can override
your settings and force you to get updates anyway. The only way to stop
it besides blocking AvastEmUpdate.exe from calling home is to disable it
completely.
I know about this thread; I even responded to it (under another
handle). IIRC the thread was initially about a startup item that
wouldn't go away by itself. The same thing was happening to me and I
"solved" it by uninstalling avast! (using their uninstall tool) and
installing it again.

However, reinstalling created another problem. The whole process froze
on AvastEmUpdate.exe. Apparently, my HOSTS file from mvps.org was to
blame. I still don't know which domain, so I temporary replaced it
with the default HOSTS file and the install went fine. avast! is
capable of creating a back-up of your settings, so a reinstall wasn't
such a PITA.

Yes I recall somebody was talking about that too. ;-)
I also remember that avast! officials only reacted /once/ in this
thread
<http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=140730.msg1025160#msg1025160>

Yes indeed. :-(
 
B

Buffalo

"Gene E. Bloch" wrote in message news:[email protected]...
Some how those pictures make me fantasize that I could turn on any one
of those radios and hear broadcasts from the 20's and 30's, static and
all!

Wouldn't that be great?

It's really true.
Just go to Co and buy some good legal 'stuff' and you will fine out.
 
J

J. P. Gilliver (John)

Gene E. Bloch said:
In message <[email protected]>, BillW50 <[email protected]>
writes: []
The vast majority of mine are still fully operational.
You'd like my friend Gerry the Museum
(http://www.bvwtm.org.uk/tour/photos1.htm); he makes the same claim
about his collection.

Some how those pictures make me fantasize that I could turn on any one
of those radios and hear broadcasts from the 20's and 30's, static and
all!

Wouldn't that be great?
Sadly, no - though he sometimes _does_ operate a fleapower pirate
transmitter on the medium wave with music of the period. He says the
authorities will never detect it as a pirate station, because it isn't
broadcasting rap music ...

Though he'd assure you that the sound quality was excellent, no static!
 
G

Gene E. Bloch

Gene E. Bloch said:
In message <[email protected]>, BillW50 <[email protected]>
writes: []
The vast majority of mine are still fully operational.

You'd like my friend Gerry the Museum
(http://www.bvwtm.org.uk/tour/photos1.htm); he makes the same
claim about his collection.

Some how those pictures make me fantasize that I could turn on any
one of those radios and hear broadcasts from the 20's and 30's,
static and all!

Wouldn't that be great?
Sadly, no - though he sometimes _does_ operate a fleapower pirate
transmitter on the medium wave with music of the period. He says the
authorities will never detect it as a pirate station, because it
isn't broadcasting rap music ...
Though he'd assure you that the sound quality was excellent, no
static!

There's an FM station not far from here, fairly low power but licensed,
that specializes in big band music of the 30s and 40s. It's nice to
listen to occasionally. It's run by Menlo-Atherton High School (by
students, I guess?), in Menlo Park, CA. It's really a tape loop, there
are no announcements. When you want to know what's playing you have to
go online at http://www.kcea.org/
 

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