notifications are not using my default browser - using Avant instead

stevenavery · 21 Mar 2019

Windows 10 notifications area.

Know how to use the Settings, changed them to be longer, so I decide what to do.

They all seem to open in my Avast Secure Browser, which I really do not normally use. (My browser choices are largely based on good add-ons and how well Linkman works with the browser.)

My default browser is Firefox.

Any idea why the notifications is using the Avast browser. (I could uninstall the thing and see what happens, but if this can be understood and controlled, great.)

Josey Wales · 21 Mar 2019

If you Bought Avast then keep using it if not Remove it, This once good AV has turned into Bloatware. I use Defender only and scan once in a while with MBAM.

BTW: Welcome to The Forum.

spunk · 22 Mar 2019

We suggest uninstalling Avast. Use the Avast Clear uninstaller to remove it completely. Just use the built in Windows Defender which is a part of Windows 10

stevenavery · 22 Mar 2019

Thanks, and hello!

I have Avast on this puter from a couple of years back, when they were not so annoying. My last AV load on another puter was Kaspersky, the Collusion Factory. I've actually been pretty happy with it. I do know about the Defender-only route, but that is not my preference. Even the notifications to their browser thing does not cause any problems, it is more the principle of the thing, that they got in there invisibly. And the quirkyness of their only doing it on notifications, like they put their gremlin (sic) into the innards.

Other than this browser situation, and the occasional pop-up that I might be able to stop in some settings, Avast has been friendly on this puter. In general, I try to avoid unloading and reloading a different AV, unless the need is critical. (A few years back I used Avira, when they stuck Uniblue scam ads in there for a season, I bailed.)

And I think I will check the Avast forums first, before any unloading.

On the firewall, I use Binisoft, Windows Firewall Controll, over the Windows supplied one, and that has been fine.

I've always liked reading this forum, nice to be onboard, I am active on Donationcoder, but here is really the Windows specialty people, so I probably will read and post a decent amount.

Thanks!

spunk · 22 Mar 2019

It's your computer. But if you want our suggestion, Windows 10's inbuilt utilities, Like Windows Defender and the Windows Firewall work far better now then previous Windows versions and there is no reason to use 3rd party apps

stevenavery · 02 Apr 2019

Some of the notifications go to various browsers. I think what I should do is take the option to delete the notification, and then re-ask for it from a more normal browser (picking one that is lightly used for notifications in general.)

My theory for now is that the notification system remembers where a notification request came from.

I do appreciate the warnings about Avast bloat.

As for the Windows internal utilities, my understanding is that they can have their own little problematic glitches. I'll put in a little url I noticed from Wilders that noticed a design flaw that led to a potential "huge negative impact" on performance.
Windows Defender Is Becoming the Powerful Antivirus That Windows 10 Needs | Page 89 | Wilders Security Forums

This reminds me of when IBM make a minicomputer sort utility that read every record individually from the disk instead of bringing in a block of 100 or so to memory.

For the moment, though, I am just trying to figger out why notifications don't stabilize in one spot, like your default browser. I doubt that Avast did anything to the internals.

Testing in the days ahead!

This could be totally wrong, but I will do some checking.