Having installed & attempting to configure the “Home”
Edition, using XP SP1 & Sygate Free version firewall, I have
read on this site & seen mentioned in these forums, a
“Standard Shield” & “Web Shield”; however, I could only
find a “Network Shield” screen with “Normal”, “High” and
“Custom” Sensitivity settings. Is using the “Normal” setting
the “Standard Shield” or using the “High” setting the
“Web Shield” ? If not, I would like to know HOW to access
the “Web Shield” !? And what happens when moving the
slider to “Custom” ?
Hi Spiritsongs,
I’m using Avast! pro and I don’t know if there’s a webshield service on home edition :-
To access services settings, just right click on the Avast! blue ball (near the clock) and select “resident protection settings” (I’m not sure for the translation, I’m use Avast! for french ;D)
there is web-shield in the home edition
You can double click the a-ball aswell to get to the on-access settings then click on “details” and then you will see the providers on the left side just scroll to the bottom and you will see that the second from the bottom is the web shield 
And what happens when moving the slider to "Custom" ?Nothing, unless you change some of the settings in the Customize... section, otherwise it will drop back down to the original setting.
Clicking the Customize button will give you more detailed options if you change any of these that change the setting above the level you have the slider will be set to Custom.
The Normal setting (or default) in most of the providers is/should be ok for most users and is a balance between protection and performance, increasing the number of files scanned (increasing the sensitivity) will depending on your system may slow it slightly. So the performance V protection balance is your choice, I have all of mine set at High and I wouldn’t class my system as quick AMD Duron 1300, 512MB RAM.