I have gone to add remove programs and it sill not let me remove the program.
What is stopping it, are you getting any errors ?
They could be an indication that your installation is corrupt or damaged and possibly related to the problem you are experiencing..
It has been a good program and I have recomended it to several people, but I do not know if I will recomend it again.
Well that hasn't suddenly changed it is still a good program and not something to be given up lightly, we are happy to try and help you sort any problem but you have to want help.
Try a repair of avast. Add Remove programs, select 'avast! Anti-Virus,' click the Change/Remove button and scroll down to Repair, click next and follow. You need to be on-line to do this.
If that doesn't work try, uninstall, reboot, run the uninstall utility (see below), reboot, install latest version, reboot.
Download the avast! Uninstall Utility,
find it here and save it to your HDD so you can find it later.
It would probably be best to download the latest version of avast and save it to your HDD, somewhere you can find it again. Use that when you reinstall.