Avast blocks Internet Explorer

A year ago, immediately after installing Avast Antivirus and letting it perform one complete scan that found absolutely nothing, Internet Explorer stopped working. Luckily I had Firefox installed as my secondary browser so I was able to go online and google "Cannot surf after installing Avast." I found literally dozens of complaints from people to whom this same thing had happened. So my next step was to go the the Avast Support forum and post my problem. Long story short, nothing they suggested solved my problem.

At the time, I still had IE 6 installed. I upgraded it to IE 7 and was dismayed to find IE 7 was still blocked. I tried every fix I could find and nothing worked.

A year later I decided, before undertaking the unwelcome task of reinstalling Windows, to make one last stab at fixing Internet Explorer. I e-mailed Avast (something I should have done a year ago) and now I'm being told that it was Avast that decided to block Internet Explorer because it supposedly found some third party entity was using Explorer to access the Internet from my computer. The technician's advice was to take my computer to some repair shop and have them "completely clean" my computer.

Truthfully, I find the suggestion that something was or has been using my computer for its nefarious purposes very unlikely. I was on a pokey dial-up connection at the time and still am. None of the multiple scans I've performed before or since have ever found any hint of malware. As mentioned, I had Firefox installed as my backup browser and it was not affected. Furthermore, despite reading through those dozens of posts from people saying "Avast blocks my browser" I found not one single mention of this as being a possible cause.

Is what the Avast technician told me believable? Or is this simply Avast's way of getting rid of customers whose browsers (there are very many of us, apparently) have been irretrievably broken by Avast?

Any input would be appreciated.

Trist

 

I used to use Avast, but then started having issues with it always scanning and blocking things I would download. It would block almost everything. I went back to using MSE for my home computer, which works very well.

 

How does that address the OP's IE browser query?

 

Avast IS 8 is working fine with IE 11.

 

I guess what I should have appended to my post, besides my question of whether what the Avast technician is claiming is believable, is whether Wilders Forum can help me determine whether there truly is something on my computer that was illegally accessing the Internet through my default browser.

I know I will probably be forced to reinstall Windows if I want to get IE back, since I have no intention of paying mucho dólares for some shop to "clean" my computer. But I really want to know if all this time I have had some kind of evil entity lurking on my machine which caused Avast to permanently block Internet Explorer for me.

Thanks again,

Trist

 

Hello Trist,

This will not answer your questions regarding Avast!, but it may help with your IE not working. I have used this in the past on a number of systems and had a good success rate with it. What it does is repair missing or corrupted files in IE but it does not alter any of your settings. It seems you have run several scans and cannot find any infection, so it will not hurt to try it and it could very well solve your IE issues. You can find it here: -http://www.tweaking.com/content/page/repair_internet_explorer.html
If I were you I would definitely give it a try...

 

If you can go to Internet options, go to the advanced tab, then click reset internet explorer settings.

 

IE uses a babylon related search function.I believe its present in the search scopes.
Use the find function in regedit and type babylon.
Not sure if this will help but is a suggestion.

 

As already posted,resetting internet explorer settings usually fixes any connection problems.There are some legitimate programs that uses IE to access the internet.For example yowindow weather program wont update unless IE is able to use its flash activex plugin.
You might also want to try microsoft fixit for IE problem if resetting doesnt work.
http://support.microsoft.com/fixit/

 

puff-m-d: Last night I downloaded the IE repair tool from Major Geeks and ran it. No change unfortunately.

FreddyFreeloader: I also restored my settings in IE. Also no change.

The Red Moon: I did not understand your reply, but I did run a search through my Registry for "babylon" and it did not find anything.

ellison64: Back when IE first stopped working I downloaded all the Microsoft "Fix it" tools I could find and ran them. Last night I went back to Microsoft and made sure I had all the ones they have listed and ran them once again. Some don't work with my version of IE, but for those that did, again no change.
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Some thoughts that have occurred to me since my conversation with the Avast tech support guy.

1) If there were indeed some malicious entity accessing the Internet without my knowledge, would not the Windows Firewall have alerted me to this? And prior to blocking IE, would not Avast itself have notified me that it had found said alleged malicious entity and warned me that it was about to take this action?

2) There are exactly two programs in my Windows Firewall that are listed as exceptions to blocked incoming network connections: my download manager and Opera, which became my backup browser after Firefox was promoted to my default browser.

3) If the Avast tech support guy freely admitted that it was HIS program that blocked Internet Explorer, then surely the program creators, when they wrote the program permitting Avast to take such drastic action, would have also created some way to reverse this action. The tech guy did offer to check my machine remotely, but since mine is a dial-up connection, that was not possible. Besides, given the damage Avast has already done to my system, I'm not at all sure I would even want an Avast employee rooting about inside my computer. When I ended our conversation by saying that I did not believe his assertion that there was something on my machine that was illegally connecting to the Internet through IE, his retort was that he should know what he was talking about since he'd had this exact same conversation with "countless" other customers who'd contacted Avast, complaining that their browsers were blocked after installing their program.

4) Is it even LEGAL for an anti-virus program to permanently disable a customer's browser, such that the damage affects even upgraded versions of that browser

Trist

 

Will IE work if you uninstall Avast?

 

I don't know if you've done these things yet. Have you tried adding IE to 'Exceptions' in avast to see if it makes a difference? Also, have you tried uninstalling avast then checking to see if IE works again?

 

The very first thing I did was uninstall Avast. Even used their remove utility which in theory is supposed to expurgate Avast completely.

However before using the remove tool I did briefly reinstall Avast with an Uninstall program that monitors all changes made to the Registry during an install and then reverses those changes. Since what Avast did to IE obviously happened after that first and only scan, the uninstaller did not find the culprit change.

Avast has been off my computer ever since.

 

I don't know how avast can be the blame at this point when it is no longer on your system. And you are positive it isn't the firewall blocking IE, correct? What OS are you running? What other security programs/apps on the system?

 

Perhaps something on the Internet Options, connection tab,
LAN setting, proxy,etc,etc.

 

Usually Avast is getting blamed for "unblocking the the firewall rule deny outbound access" because of its Web Shield, not the other way.

I can feel for you though. Something messed your dial up connection for IE. It is somewhere in the IE connection settings as others have tried to tell if the other browser can access internet. Who knows your computer might yet still be infected somehow and that keeping your IE blocked.