Avast’s web shield (free version) has been blocking my Vivaldi browser (latest 32 bit version on Win 7) from accessing all web sites for the last few days. When I bypass that Avast shield temporarily it works just fine. I’ve tried reinstalling the browser and putting it’s exec file and even it’s entire folder into Avast’s exceptions but that makes no difference.
There are no Avast notifications when I try to access a site… it just times out. I have no issues with other browsers… Chrome, Brave and Firefox.
I made a post about this in Vivaldi’s user forums and one person suggested I disable “Use Secure DNS” in it’s advanced user settings. I did that and now the browser works just fine. No one was able to figure out why that made a difference only with Vivaldi browser since that setting did not effect any of my other Chrome based browsers. In any case the issue is resolved.