Hello to everyone, new user here. I wasn't sure which is the right board for this as this is kind of a newbie problem but not probably (hopefully?) one that should be in "viruses and worms" section. I've been without AV for a while, using Windows Defender and Windows Firewall after my last AV expired and soon after also Malwarebytes. I'm using Windows XP on desktop PC.
Now I'm using Malwarebytes free version, and today I installed PrivateFirewall and avast! AV free version. I did a quick scan on Malwarebytes and startup scan on avast!. I also did a Boot-time scan (25 infected files detected and deleted).
I've got two problems with avast! for which I couldn't find a solution by myself or via google.
Firstly, when I click "More detail..." or other such that opens a page in web browser it fails to do so. I once tried to remove Internet Explorer following Microsoft's own instruction but it didn't work completely, as now avast! tries to open the page in IE and fails (I see a flash of IE and then nothing happens). Couldn't find a way to change the browser in avast! settings either. Firefox is my default browser.
Secondly, I get continuing pop-ups from avast! (every few minutes, sometimes several per minute) saying "malware blocked" or "malicious url blocked" (I've got File System, Web, Network, Script and Behavior shields). Now, I'm not sure if this indicates that there's a problem or if this is normal. If latter though, then my problem is that I can't find a way to stop these pop-ups except choosing the "Silent/Gaming mode" in which case none of the other pop-ups show up either. I tried changing the duration the pop-ups stay visible to 0 seconds, but it didn't work.