Windows 7 - avast! not letting me browse the internet?

Okay, so I recently installed avast! Free Antivirus, and I wasn't having these problems but now I am.

When ever I try to go onto the internet, I can't get a connection. Firefox says:

Unable to connect

Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at Google.

The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments.
If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network
connection.
If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure
that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

This happens on IE9 too, and the only way to get around this is to disable all the real time shields on avast!, then I can go browse, but the second I turn them back on and try to go to a new link, I get the error message.

So should I just go through turning off the shields one by one to see what is causing it, or should I do something else? I would rather not have to disable a shield...I want to have the most protection I can have.

I'm getting off the computer for the night, so I'll be back on tomorrow, thanks!

OK, my 1st question is, what did you replace with Avast? That may be the actual problem. Avast will not block you from the internet. It is possible your firewall is blocking the Avast Web Sheild. Try turning off only the Web Sheild, if you have internet access, make sure the firewall is allowing ashWebSv.exe access to the internet (remember to reenable the Web Shield). If you have Norton installed before, use the Norton Removal Tool before you do anything else, as it alone may correct your problem.

Have a look at this post on the Avast forum:

Avast! Blocking Browser HTTP Access



A Guy