This thread has been created to address the issue with the updater being very slow to complete checking for outdated apps. This bug was introduced in 12.0 Beta 4 and continues through 12.0 Beta 4.1. It may have been in code to speed up the updater check, ironically.
So far, we've had reports of it occurring in Windows 8 with Defender, unknown Windows with Vipre, and Windows 7 with unknown antivirus.