guess im wondering whats the most ideal setup, i’ve seen a few problems with web/network shield installed and firewalls 
i’ve opted just to install the standard shield, i don’t usually have my virusscan enabled anyhow… only if im about to install something sketchy or grab something from untrusted sources
It’s recommended to use at least these 3 providers:
Standard Shield
Web Shield
Network Shield
All the others are not all that important and are meant only to suplement the above providers.
well, problem is i don’t think i can use web shield/network… it screws around with Windows Vista Advanced Firewall in a way i can’t figure out lol (even if those services are installed but disabled/terminated), especially if i have both inbound/outbound connections blocked and rules created for my apps
so instead i opted to use just avast standard shield, superantispyware, malware-bytes … and other cleanup tools, i keep regular backup images of my system in a safe state, i’m pretty cautious about what i do online
enough protection? 
even if i somehow become infected, i do have those safe backup images
Well, by not using Network Shield (especially this one) and Web Shield, you are missing a large chunk of protection others have with these two providers.
‘network shield’ would it make a difference if im never connected to devices/pcs via my network and even have those options disabled under my system… though i do remember that whole RPC episode, so yeah, prob is a good idea to have network protection in case of 0-day exploit… though i would assume my ISP has protection too
i’ll prob see if i can use network shield/standard shield without any firewall issues
Network Shield doesn’t exactly relate to LAN. It’s a TCP scanner and link checker.
TCP part for detection of network worms like Sasser and link checker for checking of all links and preventing web infections at their source.
thanks for the input 
maybe it was just web shield i was having an problem with, network and standard seem to do ok alone with my advanced firewall settings
I’m using just the standard and network shields. I’ve never had any problems with it. If your surfing is as conservative as you say, I wouldn’t be surprised if you never get anything blocked by Avast. It makes me a little nervous to hear you talk about relying on your ISP for protection. I doubt your ISP provides any protection against malicious web sites or downloads. Also, the ability to cleanup with MBAM or SAS should not make you feel more comfortable. A cleanup can be a big pain at best. Some infections require a complete disk wipe and restore, so I’m glad to see you’re making disk images. Strive to use the Internet in such a way that Avast never reports anything. Relying on your AV to protect you is dangerous behavior.
That said, most of the experienced users use the Web Shield too. Ask for help setting it up.
I rely on avast! only and i have no problems with that. Even some higher risk users live just fine with just avast!.
yeah , i meant i would hope my ISP would attempt to protect if some crazy 0day exploit was happening, though i too doubt they would… probably best as thats basically filtering and we wouldn’t want that
so standard shield and network it is, i just switched from AVG which used to have decent detection rates but has since dropped, i have everything setup now
what do you all think of OpenDNS? use it? don’t use it… why?
The Vista firewall isn’t very friendly, is rule based and you have to create the rules. - Vista Firewall Control, check out this topic for some user friendly help for the Vista Firewall, Outbound protection, http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=30234.0
The ashWebSv.exe is the web shield and that needs outbound permission, port 80 TCP I believe.