Folder names remained but files within those folders were all or mostly gone.) Fortunately the Windows system folders were not impacted. ('Removed' is intended here to mean deleted. And it would have removed even more had we not realized something was wrong and shut down the PC. And these details were reported to Avast. It somehow removed avast! itself with 19 small BIN files marked as read only remaining.

In our case it removed a Delphi 7 program files subdirectory and subfolders completely involving some 5,877 files. A problem like this was so severe that Avast should have escalated the reports to the highest priority and remoted into systems that were having the issue in order to duplicate and resolve it.

In our case it reported two never used add-ons as having bad reputations we did not need them, but made the mistake of telling Browser Cleanup to remove them. And the consequences were dire: the Browser Cleanup literally went completely rogue when told to cleanup Firefox add-ons within at least a fair number of PC systems (and was not limited to a particular operating system) under some set of conditions, and due to the bug would proceed to delete thousands of local files seemingly indiscriminately in a fashion that can only be likened to a destructive virus. In this case however it wasn't a single customer, but many. After the first reports from our customer it took us quite some time to reproduce and fix the problem.'Īs a software developer, we certainly understand the problem of needing to reproduce an issue in order to be able to fix it. 'Reason was a bug in the BCU which slipped through QA because it happened in some rare conditions only. Not until Novemdid Avast finally find a solution and fix the problem which was not announced in the relevant forum until November 24 in which the Avast representative posted: Unfortunately, we were one of the victims in September of 2014 after many other reports had been filed. Avast was aware of the reports but could not find a problem with their code. When your anti-virus software works against you in a manner almost as destructive as the worst virus, it is a reminder of how dangerous software updates can sometimes be, and also how new and inadequately tested software features can lead to disaster.Īs early as June of 2014 avast! users were reporting a serious problem with the Browser Cleanup (BCU) option and Firefox. Avast has finally fixed its disastrous Browser Cleanup/Firefox add-ons bug.

How to disable avast browser cleanup