14 DAY TRIAL // Avast has just announced that it’s pulling support for Windows XP and Windows Vista from its antivirus, with the next release to work exclusively on Windows 7 and newer.
In an announcement on the company’s official blog, Avast says updates for antivirus products on XP and Vista would no longer ship as of January 1, 2019, though the company also adds that virus definitions would continue to be released.
In other words, the existing versions of Avast will run on Windows XP just like before, but new features would only be offered in builds aimed at Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10.
Furthermore, Avast would no longer provide technical support to customers on Windows XP, meaning bugs and other issues experienced by the antivirus wouldn’t get an official fix.
“We recommend that all Avast users update their Windows operating systems to the latest version of Windows 10 — not only to continue enjoying the newest Avast security upgrades, but also to eliminate the likelihood that the vulnerable older system you are currently using will get exploited,” the firm says.
New version coming next month
Despite the mentioned January 1 deadline, it looks like the end-of-support for Avast on Windows XP will actually happen much sooner.
As noted by TechDows, Avast forum moderator MartinZ revealed on the company’s discussion board that the very next update for the antivirus without support for Windows XP would land in late November.
“Due to the introduction of 64bit version in next release we decided to move the end of support of Windows XP/Vista one month earlier. So the next version planned for end of November won't support XP/Vista,” the post reads.
The current version of Avast is 18.7 and it can still be installed on Windows XP and Windows Vista, but beginning with 18.8, Windows 7 or newer would be required.