Downloading Avast! Free can be somewhat confusing…

If you’re a bit confused as to why the copy of Avast! that you downloaded keeps asking you to register repeatedly or says your trial period has expired, that might be because you’re not using the free version of Avast!. Maybe you’re here because some of the popups or web pages don’t make sense. Of course you could be here just because I asked you to stop by and make sure you knew where to look for and how to download Avast! Free for home use. For what ever reason, you’re here and you obviously want to know how to get Avast! Free for home use.

We’ll start with the obvious, go to The Avast! website. You’ll be greeted by the following:

Next click on the Home button at the top of the screen.

Now you should be looking at the following web page (assuming my images aren’t outdated):

If you can’t see the Download buttons at the bottom of the screen you might need to scroll down a bit.  You’re looking for this:

After clicking on the Download button you’ll be greeted by this:

You want the subdued grey button that says No thanks.  It’s a ploy of course to get you to try the upgrade and hopefully buy it when the trial ends.  I’m not against this option by any means, but obviously if you’re here, you want the free version.  So click this:

Your next screen will take you to the CNET download page for the Avast! Free version.

Click the Download Now button to start the download process. If nothing gets in the way then the download will start and you will see this page:

In IE 9.0 you should see the yellow bar at the bottom of the page.  Here’s a closeup:

Click Save and put it somewhere you can find the file.

The following is for older version of IE prior to IE 9.0:

If you’re using Internet Explorer 7.0 or 8.0 you will most likely have to click the download blocked bar at the top of the screen and tell Internet Explorer that you really did want to download the file that it annoyingly blocked you from downloading.  Like so:

Select Download File… and save it somewhere you can find it.

What’s left?

From here it’s just a matter of installing Avast! just like any other program. If I get enough requests I can outline the steps for installation as well, but for now I’ll leave with this.  Hope it’s been informative and helpful in some way.