I have just downloaded, updated and registered Avast Home Edition for my Windows 98 and am getting the symbol over my A icon that means that the protection is off. The Red cross with the circle. Why am I getting this? My clock is up to date so it’s not that. It says that 6 providers is active when I hover over it though.
Uninstall avast, cleans all the archives of it of the system, later installs again.
It can be an error of installation. 
Thanks.
The most common cause of this is having another AV installed or remnants of one on your system.
Have (or did) you another AV installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ?
What other security based software do you have, anti-spyware, etc. ?
What surprises me is your having 6 providers running, to my thinking if avast isn’t running then it shouldn’t be possible for all the providers to be running.
It was 6 provides and 4 running. I reinstalled it and it is fine now. Thanks
But did you have any other antivirus in the past in this computer?
NONE
Strange… But I’m glad you have avast working and running now…