Web Shield causes all browsers to stop working

[info]

I have been on for four hours and twenty minutes today and have not had "the inability to connect to the net using Firefox after a few hours problem" since I last reported it yesterday.  All in all, I have had about 10-12 straight hours of uninterrupted connection to the net so, I feel that I can re-confirm that Web Shield is indeed causing the problem as was my initial impression.  The last time I was able to run this long without a problem was the last time I ran avast! without Web Shield.

How really important is Web Shield anyway?  I have Zone Alarm, Spybot S&D, Windows Defender, and avast! (without Web Shield) running really smoothly on Vista Home Premium.  The system runs beautifully (very fast).   I have been considering moving to Avira as a last resort, but I am not sure that they have a component equivalent to Web Shield at this point, and am uncertain that I would be gaining much with the move.  We seem to be at the end of the line here, what would you guys do?  Again, thanks so much to you all for your help and your kind manner.

[richarddi]

I've been lurking awhile and am at the exact same point as Info. I'm also running Windows Vista Home Premium with ZoneAlarm and Windows Defender. I've reinstalled Avast like described and am still having problems.
I've also considered switching to a different AV but AVG seems to have the same problem and I don't think I would like Avira because of the nagscreens and it doesn't have emailprotection. At the moment I'm also running without webshield and haven't had a lock-up for a whole day. So I would like to stay with Avast but I aslo want to be protected.

[DavidR]

Personally I would try a different firewall.

[richarddi]

Thanks for replying. I've tried turning off ZoneAlarm but that was a few weeks ago and I'm not sure how I tested it. Info tried it also and it didn't work for him. I will test this tomorrow again with Vista firewall instead.

[info]

Personally I would try a different firewall.

Can you recommend one?  I was thinking about Comodo (too complicated?) or Online Armor.

[info]

Richard, I turned off Zone Alarm (but did not completely uninstall it) and ran with the Vista Firewall.  Unfortunately, it did not work for me.  I believe I read somewhere that the avast! update feature was causing this problem for some people and while I've tested it with "Ask when update is available," I have not tested it with the "Manual" setting.  It may just be coincidental that I sometimes lose the connection after about 4 hours of use which is the time that avast! checks for updates (as I understand it).

[Vlk]

info, have you already tried the latest avast update? (4.8.1227)
The previous version had a bug, that could (theoretically) cause what you're describing...

Thanks
Vlk

[richarddi]

Info, I just turned out ZoneAlarm and rebooted but in the security panel it says it's still active. So maybe I indeed have to uninstall it completely. I also had "Ask when update is available" "but today I've updated so now I'm running 4.8.1227. Lets first see if that fixes the problem before I try to uninstall ZoneAlarm. It's late in the Netherlands I'm going to sleep now, I'll keep you updated tomorrow.

[info]

Vlk and Richard,  Thanks for the heads up on the update (I had reset updates to manual so I've just gotten the latest).  I suppose it is worth another 4 hours or so to test it out.  I'm enjoying the stability of things right now but am intending to turn on Web Shield and take it for another spin tomorrow to see if the update makes a difference.  I really want this to work.

[info]

Richard, I believe I had a similar problem with Zone Alarm being reported as running when I had set it not to start up with Vista. I believe that I rebooted twice and it disappeard from the Vista Security Center, then I turned on the Vista Firewall.  David indicated that some of the drivers in Norton Internet Security (which I had pre-installed on my machine) were probably still being loaded and this may be the case with Zone Alarm as well, so my test in that area was inconclusive.

[Goliath Corporation]

Vlk - great to hear about the update.  Am holding thumbs that the bug has been squashed. 

The update went without a hitch, so I'll monitor things over the next few days and report back on how it's going.

[miscreant]

The common factor in this thread seems to be zonealarm and avast.If any testing needs to be done ,i think the programs will have to be completely uninstalled (registry cleaned) then tested.In the case of za make sure it isn't set to start with windows before uninstalling.
m

[eze]

see my problem is similiar, and if i stop avast  and restart it , everything goes back to normal for a little while, then browsing stops again, i am just not so sure its zonealarm. this is on a vista sp1 machine, with the lastest version free zonealarm and avast. avast has full permissions. have uninstalled zonealarm and reinstalled it also.

[info]

see my problem is similiar, and if i stop avast  and restart it , everything goes back to normal for a little while, then browsing stops again, i am just not so sure its zonealarm. this is on a vista sp1 machine, with the lastest version free zonealarm and avast. avast has full permissions. have uninstalled zonealarm and reinstalled it also.

Same here with Windows Vista SP1 32bit.

[info]

The common factor in this thread seems to be zonealarm and avast.If any testing needs to be done ,i think the programs will have to be completely uninstalled (registry cleaned) then tested.In the case of za make sure it isn't set to start with windows before uninstalling.
m

I'm not sure that Goliath is using Zone Alarm and believe he is on XP Pro SP3.