Hi igor
"From what you describe, it's pretty likely that your firewall is blocking avast! from the Internet. So, have you tried adding the rules to permit such communication?"
Thanks for your input, however it would seem that I didn't make myself clear. Either way, here it is again, in brief...
"even when I tried turning off all three of the other protection ware, AVAST still wasn't firing on all cylinders and still couldn't connect to the internet?"
As with you, the Firewall was my first thought, as a potential culprit too. The firewall is set up in such a way that when a new program is installed it always asks if it should be blocked or allowed. I told it to 'allow' then - when it couldn't connect - I checked to make sure. It was/is allowed. But even so, I now know catagorically that it can't be anything to do with any of my protection ware, for the reason I say above.
As yet I haven't uninstalled this latest AVAST although I have now disabled it. In favour of SpywareTerminator's Clam AV. I have to have some protection while I wait and see if you guys can come up with anything to save the day.
Asyn thanks for the link, I'll give it a go. I'll have to keep my toes crossed, because I really don't want to have to lose AVAST.
