"The forum ate my first reply, so I'm not going to type a lot this time.
Are you sure of which shield it is that's taking the time? Could be the File System Shield.
-Noel"
Hey, Noel, congratulations and thanks, too.
I followed your instructions re the File System Shield and it definitely worked on about 50% (I estimate) of the process. Some parts of the ongoing connection do not move the little globe while before the exclusions it went wild. Still, at some activity of the connection, included the program's start up, Avast still scans.
I excluded 8 pathways in total, all related to this program and I looked through all the settings but I saw nothing else I could relate to scanning exclusions. I really do not know what I am doing.
I welcome some more suggestions.
Thank you, guys.