AVAST Home edition blocking web browsing and email

[edgy]

I've gone 'round and 'round with AVAST tech support on this and they have now abandoned trying to solve the issue:

For no apparent reason AVAST Home Edition suddenly began blocking my web browser.  Worse, it also began blocking my access to email through both Thunderbird2 and Outlook 2003.  I could, however, access my email by going through Gmail to retrieve it from my server.

I have uninstalled and re-installed AVAST with no change.  Has anyone else seen this and were you able to resolve it???

[bob3160]

Avast! scans. It doesn't block.
This sounds like a firewall problem.
Are you allowing avast! access through your firewall

[ddelamarre]

Hello,

  I am suffering from exactly the same issue. One day, both WWW and e-mail stopped working on my home XP machine. Only what the browser has in its cache was used, the transfer appeared as finished but it behaves as if it was empty.

  It took me a considerable time to find the source because of another issue I believed was the cause. I took the windows FW for guilty, I repaired windows, moved to another disk ... installed the Sunbelt personal (ex-kerio) firewall... and stopped the MS one.
  I finally checked in case a strange setting was in place in AVAST and found that if I prevent the WEB documents from being scanned or if I inactivate the WEB shield, then it works fine :-(
  I tried re-installing AVAST with no change.

  Note that I have a pro version on a business machine that does not show that issue.

Is there a chance that it is fixed soon in a next release?

[bob3160]

Is there a chance that it is fixed soon in a next release?

There isn't anything to fix.
The problem isn't with avast! but with your permission in your firewall.
Allow avast! access through your firewall and your problems will be gone.

[Lisandro]

Into the firewall settings, the following programs should be allowed to connect:

C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashWebSv.exe (avast! Web Scanner)
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashMaiSv.exe (avast! e-Mail Scanner Service)
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\Setup\avast.setup (avast! Update executable). This is a temporary file that just appears when an update (check) is about to launch, and disappears again afterwards.