This icon recently started appearing in the tray, but only appears for 1-2 seconds at a time. I can’t click on it for anything, but I can mouse-over and it shows me an IP address. I recently discovered I can make the icon appear by telling Thunderbird (Mozilla e-mail client) to check for messages.
Here is a picture of the icon: https://home.comcast.net/~khsthree/pictures/icon.jpg
I’m pretty sure now it’s not a security issue, but it’s driving me crazy not knowing what it means. Can anyone help?
That icon is visible if you send or receive email. It is part of the email scanner in Avast.
excellent, thanks for your response. There goes one headache…
You can disable it (the icon appearance) if you want into the Internet Mail provider settings 
I have the same issue. What I don’t understand is that the IP adresses have nothing to do with myself or my ISP or my webmail provider. Some are even in other countries - how can that be ?
besides, in my case it doesn’t appear during mail usage (I don’t use my ISPs mail). Could it be gmail checking for new messages ?
Thanks in advance for any info on that subject, which makes me nervous… ???
IP addresses? What exactly does it say? Don’t you rather refer to the informative messages from the Network Shield?
No, it couldn’t. Gmail is not a pop3/smtp email. It’s not scanned by the Internet Mail provider of avast.
Seems that you have the Network Shield alert like Igor said…
Do you use a firewall? Which one?
