Issues with gmail

I have avast free on one of my laptops(cant remember which version) and it preventss sending and receiving of email thru gmail when using thunderbird. This has been ongoing for almost 2 yrs, and now that I am on the verge of a new laptop, I want to know has this issue been fixed? I want to use avast on the new system, but if it won’t allow for sending/receiving of gmail emails then I’ll continue using AVG or some other product. The only way I can use avast and gmail/thunderbird at the same time is to disable avast then reenable it, way too much of a PITA even for something I’m not paying for…

what avast version and build number are you using

does this help http://www.avast.com/en-eu/faq.php?article=AVKB91#artTitle