Avast 7.0.1407 continually connected to web

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

My firewall shows Avast antivirus is continually connected to the web uploading and downloading information (even when not updating) and AvastSvc.exe is continually listening on several ports.

Is this necessary? How do I stop this? I do not like this.

I originally experienced this prior to the 7.0 upgrade and fixed it by disabling the web shield. Once I disabled the web shield, Avast would connect to the internet only when updating.

Any advice?

2

AvastSvc.exe (Web Shield) acts as a local proxy. Traffic from/to your browser is routed thru it to be scanned. If you close your browser (and some other programs use the browser ports), you will see that AvastSvc.exe traffic drops accordingly. It’ll still be loaded, listening on the ports.