I was first having trouble bringing up my router's control panel. Wasted hours thinking it was my router. Then noticed other computer connected to router had no issues. Then I also noticed that this 4-yr old Windows 7 computer was browsing the web like 5 times faster than my brand new notebook.
Disabling the Network Shield solved the problem of the Router Control. But then things still seemed to be slow when web browsing. The old Win 7 machines was still way faster. So I uninstalled Avast, and wala, back to NORMAL!
I had latest build of Avast of today. I am a bit frustrated that there was no communication from Avast I received regarding Windows 8 issues despite having registered an account when I installed Avast!