Thank you! 
You are the first person to actually explain the purpose. I’ve commented on this elsewhere in the past and got ignored. I suppose I should have thought about how switching to another desktop could fight some malware. I have programs such as ProcessGuard on XP and Online Armor ++ to defeat much, if not all, of that with their classic HIPS, and the web is filtered through the Proxomitron with Sidki’s latest configs, but most users don’t have such software. But some sites do this when you go to look at photos!
BTW, I don’t think Avast uses it excessively…I am just super sensitive to it I think. 