Why is chrome stuck on 'Downloading proxy script' ?

Recently I've experienced a very annoying behaviour when starting Chrome, and particularly when refreshing a webpage after having recovered the system from sleep, namely Chrome doesn't load any web page with "Downloading proxy script" message appearing in the lower left corner of the browser window (it only happens with Chrome, Internet Explorer loads normally).

After searching the Internet, a solution is indeed available as quite a number of people have experienced the same problem, I thought it might be useful to share it here:
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/106010?hl=en

 

Do you have Avira Web Guard running? That might be the cause. Running Chrome under Sandboxie is another possibility, especially with Avira plugins inside.

 

As I mentioned there is a remedy no matter what, but for the record, it happens even without Sandboxie and I had Avira's web guard running for almost 2 months, while I've noticed this problem two days ago...