I am running Avast Free with Windows XP SP3. As of yesterday my internet browsers can't connect. I ran 4 different virus/trojan scans, 3 different malware/spyware scans, CCleaner and 2 other disk cleaners, 2 registry cleaners. Nothing worked.
I disabled the firewall and still couldn't connect. I updated Avast and still couldn't connect. I figured out that Outlook would let me online through it and thought that was weird. Used Outlook to search for solutions and tried a few but nothing worked. Only thing that will work is to disable the Avast Web Shield. I tried with and without my FW and it worked both ways.
After I got connected in IE I opened some websites and then enabled the web shield. I tried to refresh the websites and they couldn't connect. Disable the web shield and they worked again by just clicking refresh. What's going on! Is there anything that can be done or do I have to find another free antivirus program?