I just installed the advast home version, but now I can’t surf the web unless I turn it off. What else do I need to do? ???
What is your firewall ?
Does it allow ashWebSv.exe internet access ?
- If it does delete the entries for them and reconnect to the internet, this will force the firewall to ask permission again.
You shouldn’t need to completely disable avast, if the Web Shield is being blocked terminating that should allow you to connect, whilst you check out your firewall settings.
My firewall is McAfee. I did as you asked, but still can’t surf. I am also using IE7 and comcast.
Ok, just for checking reasons, I shut down my firewall and tried to surf, but still to no avail. That must not be the reason. Any other ideas to try?
You say you did as I asked, I can only assume that ashWebSv.exe is listed as you didn’t say and if so, did you delete the entry ?
If you deleted the entry the firewall should have asked permission when you try to browse again, did it ?
The more detailed you are in your answers they easier it is for us.
Your McAfee firewall, is it part of a suite that includes the McAfee anti-virus ?
Yep, sorry…McAfee is part of a suite, I checked the firewall and it did have ashwebsv.exe listed, so I deleted it. I did however notice that it has not asked me to grant access. Come to think of it, it didn’t ask me when I installed it either.
If it is part of a suite, you will have to uninstall the anti virus part completely. You likely have a conflict between mcafee and avast.
I uninstalled the virus protection first, but still couldn’t get on line, but then I uninstalled the entire suite and now here I am. 
Thank you for the help. Now I have to see if I can reinstall just the firewall part. Does anyone know of a great firewall?
You could try a custom install of the suite and don’t select the antivirus, just the firewall, but as you have noticed there appears to be some failures in that. Many forum users are using the Comodo Firewall.
There are many freeware firewalls such as, Comodo, PCTools Firewall Plus, Jetico, etc. - Zone Alarm free works fine with avast and has a reasonably friendly user interface, however, the free version is becoming bloated with trial ware and is also crippled as far as outbound protection goes In the Program Control, configuration area, the slider will only goes as far as Medium protection, if you want more you have to buy the Pro version.
Also see http://www.matousec.com/projects/windows-personal-firewall-analysis/leak-tests-results.php
Hi Emily :
You were wise to COMPLETELY REMOVE McAfee ( hopefully you used the
info at http://ts.mcafeehelp.com/faq3.asp?docid=71525 ) ; for the Best
Recommendation(s) for a firewall, you would need to tell us the SPECIFIC
Name of your Operating System, which is most likely either Win XP or
Vista and IF your computer has a 64 bit OS !?