Cannot browse web with Avast active

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hi

Been using avast for years and on many machines. Love it.

Today, however, I am having a problem with one machine -Recently cleaned of infections, XP home SP 3 Avast 5.0… just downloaded

Neither IE or Firefox (no browsers) can display any web pages as long as I have Avast enabled.

I can ping all sites, Windows updates and Avast Updates are coming in in the background but I can’t open any web pages unless I disable avast or run the machine in safe mode.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled Avast, in fact, I have even done a couple of “Overlay” installs of XP.

Have seen the posts on this site about checking the registry entries for the “TEMP” and “TMP” file settings and all seems OK.

2

What is your firewall ?
Does it allow avastSvc.exe internet access ?

  • If it does delete the entry for it and reconnect to the internet, this should force the firewall to ask permission again. This is the most common cause of this, the firewall blocking the web shield.
3

Windows Firewall (behind router on which at least 4 other computers are operating well) both on and off.

4

Well the XP firewall has zero outbound protection (which shouldn’t be the issue here) and unless your specifically states it has outbound firewall protection it doesn’t either. So there would appear to be something else in the mix.

You say that you have just downloaded avast 5, what AV did you have before avast 5 (and how did you remove it) ?

5

This machine had a soon to expire Nod 32.

Not sure if the machine’s history. So, I also ran a Norton clean uninstalle/removal tool and tried to run one for Mcafee

It is an aging dell laptop so it might have had one of those installed earlier (not my machine)

The norton tool seemed to work but the McAfee tool reports incomplete removal. Its log reports “Error while running cleanup using task scheduler”.

6

Remnants of previous AVs if not completely removed can cause conflict in all sorts of ways, Norton is notorious for leaving remnants (but having run their uninstall tool should be clean), Nod32 I though was better at cleaning up in its add remove programs uninstall routine.

You could try - NOD32 Removal Tool - http://www.nod32.nl/download/tool/nod32removal.exe, right click on the link and select Save As or Save File (As depending on your browser), save it to a location where you can find it easily later.

7

Sorry David, no joy.

Seems to find site (says connecting and the name of the site) and then Internet Explorer Cannot display the webpage.

8

OK, I have just tried that and the link using the download them all, a firefox add-on is working for me, see image.

Also see http://www.askvg.com/ultimate-collection-of-uninstallers-removal-tools-for-all-popular-anti-virus-software/ for others not listed above.
and http://uninstallers.blogspot.com/

9

Sorry David,

I got the nod uninstaller using another computer. Was able to sneaker net it to the machine in question and ran it. Seemed to work.

Previous post is result after running the tool and rebooting :-\

10

OK, it may be best/quickest to try a clean reinstall including the use of the uninstall tool (don’t know if you did that before):

  • Download the latest version of avast, 5.0.594 http://files.avast.com/iavs5x/setup_av_free.exe and save it to your HDD, somewhere you can find it again (if you didn’t save your last download). Use that when you reinstall.

  • Download the avast! Uninstall Utility, aswClear5.exe find it here and save it to your HDD (it has uninstall tools for both 4.8 and 5.0).

    1. Now uninstall (using add remove programs, if you can’t do that start from the next step), reboot.- 2. run the avast! Uninstall Utility from safe mode, first for 4.8 if previously installed and then for 5.0, once complete reboot into normal mode.- 3. install the latest version, reboot.
11

OK, Uninstalled Avast, got and ran the clear tool (in safe mode per its request), reboot, re-install Avast, reboot, no change.

12

Remains of an old antivirus (Norton, NOD, McAfee) or firewall seems to be messing your computer…
Or the cleaning procedures you’ve followed, just mess your computer connection…

13

And…

So…

14

Given what you have done to try and resolve this, the only thing that I can think of is that the infection that you say was recently cleaned, may well not be completely gone.

As I’m at a bit of a loss as to what else to suggest if there are no other AV remnants.

Are you using a web proxy to connect to the internet ?

You could try setting the browser to use the Web Shield local proxy, see below.

Whilst these tutorials are old they should give you an idea of where to look and how to set it up:
For IE - broadband users: - Tutorial - Web Shield Proxy Set-up for IE
For Firefox users - Tutorial - Web Shield Proxy Set-up for Firefox

15

Thanks for all of the help but even set to use local proxy … No Joy!

Guess I will have to admit defeat and do a geeksquad style nuke and pave.

Bummer,

16

Difficult to guess.
Hard to say.
Maybe… start again, formating?

17

You’re welcome, sorry it wasn’t a better outcome. This is most certainly a weird one.

18

Try the following:settings-troubleshooting. Then…I don’t remember exactly,but AFAIR then should be something like redirect settings.Change redirect port:type 8080 instead of 80.

19

Thanks for the idea, Onix, but still no joy.

20

Disable Web Shield straight away and check whether the problem adheres…
-if it doesn’t, this means Web Shield is the module that stops your pc from displaying webpages, and we can give suggestions more specifically…