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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Jaded_Spirit8650 on 2026-07-11 01:28:39+00:00.
A couple months ago, I was hacked on various platforms due to a trojan virus. I was so traumatized from the experience that after that I decided to get a few antiviruses. Now, I heard that Microsoft defender is already quite good, however, it failed to remove the virus from my laptop completely and it had kept coming back. So I go and search up "good antivirus free" I end up getting Malwarebytes, hitman pro, and Avast. In fact, Avast had several posts on reddit vouching for it, claiming that it was one of the best free antiviruses out there. I get everything set up and the first week of my little antivirus family was relatively peaceful.
By the end of the week, Malwarebytes and Hitman pro managed to root out every last bit of the trojan. Hurray. I keep everything anyway in case this happens again. Now, Avast didn't seem to do any heavy lifting, but it was fine. One extra layer of protection could never go wrong, right?
Wrong. For the next months leading up to today, every time I attempted to even breathe, this godforsaken program would pop up and tell me, "you have 14 critical errors on your pc!" "click here to scan." I oblige. It scans. It comes up with a bunch of general issues that come with a laptop that does not have an antivirus on steroids and or uses the internet (aka most laptops); this includes exposed ip address, data mining, etc. etc... When I ask avast to fix these for me? It's paywalled. I close the window in defeat. It also does not help that Avast comes with a shitty browser that looks straight out of 2005, which also opens on launch. Hitman pro has never bothered me a day in my life, malwarebytes pops up sometimes but the pop-up window is small and unintrusive. Avast takes up a 1/6th of my damn screen when it comes up from the right. 2/3s when it is the big pop-up. Sweet mother Mary of baby Jesus this is worse than McAfee.
The final straw came to me when I was playing Elden Ring. I am very early in the game, and I had just mustered up the courage and skill to fight the tree sentinel (for those who don't know, it is a very hard boss that can one-shot you located at the start of the game). I get this thing down to 2-3 hits, and what do you know? Hello Avast antivirus. Thank you for interrupting my gameplay in a high pressure moment and leading to my death. I've suffered enough at the hands of this wretched "antivirus." I head to my settings to uninstall it, and it takes a few tries (the first of warnings I would ignore out of sheer anger) but the thing opens up a window. "What would you like to do? -> uninstall Why? -> too many pop-ups Have you tried limited mode? -> uninstall" The hour of reckoning is finally upon us. I look at the progress bar in glee, thankful that I would never have to gaze upon this awful app ever again. And when it is finally done, my browser cannot open anything, citing the issue as either the firewall or an antivirus. No biggie, just restart the laptop like avast suggested. Same issue. Try again, same issue. I'm worried at this point. I search online on my phone for what could possibly the cause. Turns out, this fucking antivirus is so jank that it comes with its own official uninstaller tool because it is KNOWN to cause issues when uninstalled. I'm crying from frustration at this point. 2 hours of troubleshooting later, I end up just restoring my pc to a past version from 3 days ago. Avast is still on my laptop in this version. I wish I could tell you all that I had overcome my obstacles and completed my hero's journey in vanquishing Avast Antivirus, but no. Avast remains unharmed and I have just lost 2 hours of my life to it. Screw the 5 redditors recommending this Satan-spawn of an antivirus. Well played, Avast. See you in hell.
TL;DR: Installed Avast to combat virus, Avast somehow bricks my laptop worse than the virus did. Do not use this thing.