Correct. Avast! does not load my browser. However,
1. I get a pop-window saying that avast! is contacting the website;
2. It downloads the update;
3. Then I am disconnected from my dial-up;
4. I re-establish my connection (not browser), and sit back and wait;
5. I get a pop-up saying the update has been installed and that it took this-many seconds (less than a minute), and I am disconnected again.
6. This process takes at least five minutes.
I'm tired of being told that Avast! doesn't do this. I talked to my ISP and we reinstalled my connection and a few minutes ago, while I was checking my mail online, the avast! pop-up saying there is a new download, popped up. I clicked it to download. I got the notice that avast! was downloading, and then was disconnected. I reconnected, got the installed message, and was disconnected again.
Avast! does everything it's supposed to: scans at startup, scans while I'm online, scans when I manually ask it to (using the desktop icon, not the tray icon to run the scan). It doesn't disconnect while scanning. It only disconnects when updating, and it does it EVERY TIME between the download and install, and again after the install.
I'm removing avast! from this computer and will wait until my laptop is replaced and use avast! on it. The time spent on this is outrageous and regardless of whether or not you've heard of the problem before, it exists. Perhaps this should be referred to your programmers rather than technicians. I believe there is a bug in the update module which causes problems with some OS's, with browsers, or with dial-ups.
Thank you.