How to Remove Avast Antivirus

Even though Avast is one of my favorite antivirus products, there have been times when I've needed to uninstall or remove it. Corrupted virus signatures have caused it not to update properly, or it wont start properly and it needs to be reinstalled. Maybe corrupted files are causing 100% CPU usage. These and other issues can cause you to uninstall and reinstall your antivirus product.

Whatever the reason for needing to uninstall Avast, I've listed the best procedure for doing this below:
Normal Uninstall

The first thing you want to try is to locate Avast in the Add/Remove Control Panel and try to remove it from there. Follow these instructions to accomplish this.

1) Click on Start, Control Panel
2) Open Add/Remove Programs
3) Find Avast in the Programs list and highlight it
4) Click Remove and follow the prompts to uninstall Avast

Using the Avast Uninstall Utility

If for some reason the normal uninstall does not work, you may have to download Avast's own Uninstall Utility.

1) Click on the following link and download the Avast Uninstall Utility to your desktop

http://files.avast.com/files/eng/aswclear.exe

2) Double-click on the file ASWCLEAR and run it
3) You should see the following screen



4) Click on the ellipsis and choose the folder where Avast is installed. This folder is usually in the Program Files directory. Ex. C:\Program Files\Avast

Be very careful which folder you choose since whatever folder is chosen will be completely deleted from your computer.

5) Once the uninstall has completed, reboot your computer. You may then try to reinstall it or another antivirus.

If for some reason the uninstall utility does not remove it, you may have to reinstall a newer version of Avast to then proceed to uninstall or you may have an issue where multiple antivirus programs are showing in the Windows Security Center.

Download the latest version of Avast