I have been using Avast for several months without a complaint and have recommended it many times. A few days ago I followed the prompts from the tray icon to upgrade and it immediatly starting causing problems upon completion.
The problems are only when I am using resource intensive applications. At first I could not tell where they were coming from because the screen would freeze completely. Finally, I was able to get Ctrl>alt>delete to pull up the task list and it listed ashserv as failing to respond.
I have found that if I manage to kill ashserv I am able to use my heavy applications without problem, but I need to kill it completely. Simply turning virus protection to ‘off’ does not do the trick, and simply closing ashserv removes the icon from my system tray but ashserv continues to run as a process.
If virus protection is turned off and the icon is removed, what is ashserv doing and why is it still running?