igor

i checked the firewall blocks and it was something like the “avast email scanner service”, the ‘ashMai’ module for sure, that was blocked from outgoing access after the uninstall and reboot

this is the same critter that was apparently giving me such a hard time attempting to turn it off and of course working with emails was where i encountered the performance degradation, so it would seem that this module was problematic, on my machine anyway…

i just removed the firewall block to see if it might perchance still be around trying to do something, and will post back if it does… (fyi, “avast setup” is still in the firewall rules as unblocked…)