Disable Avira Free Antivirus Pop-up Ads

Avira Free Antivirus is probably one of the best antiviruses you can get from the long list of free security software on the market nowadays.

The problem with the free version of Avira Antivir, however, is that it constantly pop-ups an annoying advertisement asking you to buy their premium version, usually after the signature database update. It's not the first time that their pop-up made one of my games crash while I was playing in fullscreen, so I set out to eliminate this annoyance.

Important: You'll have to disable Antivir's "Product Protection" first in order to do this manipulation:

1. Open Avira Free Antivirus.
2. Press F8 to open up the options (or from the menu, go to Extras > Configuration).
3. Click Expert mode to enable advanced options (button turns yellow).
4. On the General Tab, click Security.
5. On right side Uncheck all boxes on the Product protection section.

Now let's disable the culprit responsible for these ads, a file named avnotify.exe.

For Windows XP / 7 (Administrator rights required) :

1. Go to the Antivir installation folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\Avira\AntiVir Desktop
2. Right click avnotify.exe and select Properties.
3. Under the Security tab, select SYSTEM and click Edit...
4. Tick Read & Execute in the Deny column, and click OK.

You can now (and should) revert back Antivir's "Production protection" in the same manner we've disabled it.

Reboot your computer and enjoy an advertisement free antivirus.

Update:
It seems there is still another way Avira can show us ads (using a file called ipmgui.exe) in the form of notifications in your lower right screen. If you wish to get rid of these messages too, simply repeat the steps above for the file ipmgui.exe found in Antivir's installation folder. Also, don't forget to enable the "Production protection" after you're done, it's very important.

New Avira Free Antivirus doesn't show up in the right-click menu

If you updated from a previous version of Avira Antivir to the new 2012 version, it could have happened that the entry from the right-click context menu to quickly scan files disappeared. As this a pretty useful shortcut to scan questionable files, you might want to get it back.

It's very simple:

1. Go to Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features.

2. On the list of programs that appears, look for the Avira Free Antivirus entry. Select it and press Change at the top, or right-click it and select Change.

3. On the new window that pops up select Modify and press Next. The default settings are usually the best settings, so you might want to leave everything like it looks and press Next until the modifications are complete. When you pressed enough Next, simply press Finish.

4. The right-click context menu should now be visible again.