I am on XP Home. The security programs I have running are Avast, WinPatrol and Windows Defender.
Until a few weeks ago I had been running Sygate firewall, but then tried Ashampoo, then Comodo. When trying Comodo I could not connect to websites and got no indication of what was wrong, just the "connection to server was reset" message, so I had no clues as to how to try to figure out what the problem was or what to do to fix it. I went back to Ashampoo, then ran across the Avast lingering menu item image problem discussed in another thread. That was where I should have left well enough alone, but instead I reinstalled Avast, thinking that might solve that problem. I then got messages saying Avast update could not run, which I decided was due to my Ashampoo rules for Avast no longer referencing the right folder. I eventually uninstalled both Ashampoo and Avast, using the Avast cleanup program to get rid of all traces of Avast. With neither a firewall nor Avast installed, I was able to connect to all websites with no problem. I then reinstalled Avast beta as the first step - no firewall installed - and tried to access websites using both Firefox and IE, but I get the "waiting for.." on the status line, then the "connection to server was reset" message. I then discovered that I can get to websites if I stop On-Access Protection, but can not if I start it again. It's a simple binary situation - if On-Access is started I can never connect, if it is stopped I can always connect. I have not yet reinstalled any firewall, in order to avoid introducing another variable into the problem.
As I've said in earlier posts, I don't think it's a problem with Avast, but with something else that is affecting how Avast works. I'd just like to figure out what it is so I don't have to do a reformat and reload to get things back to normal. An ideas would be appreciated.
PS: I also just determined that I cannot run iAVS update - connection terminated.
