Update: when I first reinstalled avast!IS and chose the wrong installation options (disabling all but Safezone) the processed continued with the message ‘stopping the firewall’. This took forever, So I forced a reset. Wrong choice. Not only my pc did not rebooted properly, the homepage of my bank (online banking) freezed, something with a plug-in of that bank. Plus, there’s a problem with de avast-firewall. I eventually did -via control panel - new installation and this time disabling the Safezone option. Further testing is required to see is everything working properly.

As of now, the homepage of my bank is working properly at least.

I may do complete de-installation and re-install avast IS.