HI DavidR no avast free has not updated to 14-2 to automatically yet. The firewall i use is the Windows firewall.
thanks
The win8.1 firewall, whilst that has outbound protection it isn't enabled by default, I believe (if anyone can conform this as I don't use win8.1), then it shouldn't be blocking avast.
I too updated to 2015.10.0.2210 R2 Beta2 from the avastUI program update, over 2015.10.0.2210 R2 Beta1 and didn't have this issue.
You could try an avast Repair and see if that resolves it.