I tried uninstalling avast but it took so long that eventually I just had to turn my computer off. Now, it’s still there but I can’t “see” the program to attempt to uninstall it again. avastClear.exe doesn’t exist either so reinstalling it fails too.
tried to download and run it again? >> https://support.avast.com/en-eu/article/Uninstall-Antivirus-Utility
Thank you, I did not realize that avastclear was a standalone program. This solved my problem.