…and I didn’t think that would be possible. Web shield service is stopped and no amount of clicking on the turn on or fix it buttons, or shouting, will activate it. Bradman would appear to have a similar, but worse, problem aswell.
And it shouldn’t be necessary to uninstall, download again and install to rectify this. Absolute sh1t!
did you try avast repair and reboot ???
For a repair of avast. Windows, Add Remove programs, select ‘avast! Anti-Virus,’ click the Change/Remove button from the pop-up window, scroll down to Repair, click next and follow.
also very important that you have removed any previous used AV before installig avast!
also recomended to run a removal tool to clear all leftovers after uninstall
Uninstallers for Security Software - run and reboot
http://thewebatom.net/uninstallers/security-software/
If you previously had AVG installed and you unninstalled it via Windows Add/Remove programs then you should unninstall it via AVG unninstall tool, form AVG’s website.
If you already did that then a repair should help (if you don’t have anything that could interfere with avast).
Thanks for the help guys. The box with change, repair etc hadn’t been appearing, but now has.
No, it’s still a big pile of sh1t. I repaired, and rebooted because of some Windows updates, and now web shield is still not working but it also says Avast isn’t up to date. What do you reckon? For me this is an unacceptable amount of hassle.
You can re-install Avast AV program with aswclear.exe. 
http://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility
Don,t forget to remove your previous AV program. http://thewebatom.net/uninstallers/security-software/
Thanks for the help J, really appreciated, but as I said before, you shouldn’t have to go through all this. Is Avast often like this because if it is then in my opinion it’s just not good enough?
For most people they don’t have to go through any hassle, but one of the biggest hassles to installation of avast is either having another AV installed or remnants of the previous AV.
What a load of crap Avast is. I did exactly as J explained, and did a clean install of Avast, and I have exactly the same problems of no web shield and not up to date. And no, I don’t have any remnants of old A/Vs.
Reluctantly, it’s back to Avira for me >:( 
Good luck.
I would go to AVG before Avira, it is cow dung 8)
meaby solved now but what Microsoft update did you install before avast web shield stop to work?
as menaced before a clean installation is the best option here to solve your problem.
but if you have gone to Avira just say good luck and sorry avast didn’t work for you.
n01clueless,
I’m sorry avast! didn’t work out for you.
My second choice of an antivirus is http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security_essentials/default.aspx
I hope MSE will meet your needs. 
Have a good day.
I would rather have you be a little more rational. To get avast to work properly does not take a brain surgeon. Get rid of any and all previous anti-virus you have ever had. Then use CCleaner…install avast. If over 168 million other people can, I’m sure you can too.
As far as going to a different a/v, you will lose out on protection. But it’s your computer which will be infected, not mine.
Let him go Para, if he thinks it’s avast’s fault then let him go, we’ve seen persons like this already, it’s not the first and not the last.
True, but I hate MSE also…my opinion is Avira and MSE suck big time, Avast and AVG are without a doubt the best free AV.
Well the version that causes MMC to terminate the AvastSvc process, you need to update the VPS manually in order to to allow it to fix it and stuff, I know that is what happened with mine and is not updating and allowing the anti-virus scanning, but will not run the other things on it until there is word that “Full Fix” has been noted, Windows 2000 and some XP users are having this issue.
I like Avast as #1 for AV, and probably MSE as the #2 for the runner up. Sooners, what problems did you have with MSE when you had it? Avast is still the best. But some people went with MSE so they didn’t have to do the annual license key renewal, which is required for Avast. That’s the ONLY advantage that MSE has over Avast. Avast has better protection and updates as much as 3 times a day on a 12 hour cycle. MSE only updates once a day. MSE full scan takes forever on my old XP machine.
All the other AV softwares are just too bloated and only update once a day. I heard that Panda has something called Virtual Cloud which is supposedly good and light and resources. I hate Avira! Too many false positives! AVG was good until version 8 onward. Than it became too bloated, and that is why I switched to Avast. Avast has most up-to-date protection.
I use Avast Free
Malware Bytes On Demand
Web of Trust (WOT)
Jack
nm