This may be an old issue which was not fixed by uninstalling and reinstalling the latest avast free version.
Also I have no internet connectivity with IE, FF or Chrome. I had this issue with windows 7 64 bit laptop since some time.
The message further reads "Please check that the avast service (AvastSvc.exe) is not blocked by your personal firewall.
I placed exception for avast in windows firewall but that didnt seem to fix the issue.
Thanks for any help.