Avast has announced the end of support for Windows XP and Vista computers. The company published a blog post which stated that starting 1st Jan 2019, Windows XP and Vista won’t get updates.

“Avast cybersecurity products will officially stop updating our antivirus product for Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems as of January 1, 2019. The demand to protect those systems has substantially waned in recent years at the same time that the need to protect Windows 7 systems and later has grown. 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.”

I would like to point out that Avast has said computers on XP or Vista will continue to receive virus definition updates but no feature updates will be provided. So while they are still going to keep computers safe you will not get the benefit of new features which I find as a security person to be a very good decision by Avast.

Windows XP Extended support for Windows XP ended on April 8, 2014, as of August 2018, 3.06% of Windows PCs run Windows XP. In June of 2017 was the last time Windows XP had any kind of security update. Windows Vista support ended April 11, 2017, and got security updates in June of 2017 as well.

I understand Avast not wanting to develop antivirus anymore for older unsupported operating systems and it’s time for users to move off to Windows 10 or Windows 7 which is supported till January 14, 2020, which gives users time but will approach sooner than users realize.