Hello. I registered here for future use and to comment on that stupid starter post. “Distressed Newbie” that is a pathetic way to gain attention and I really doubt you have thousands of friends when you use that kind of way to approach people (especially considering very very very very few has so many people one can call friends).

Back on topic; most of the posts similar to yours is caused by having a firewall that treats Avast! applications as unsafe.
When Avast! tries to access the internet or interfer your firewall might treat it as an attack and may (depending on your settings) disable internet connection for i.e. 2 minutes, more or less.