It seems that the newest version of Avast (ver 18.6.2349) has been having issues with Malwarebytes. And the WebShield component of Avast maybe blocking all websites or at least causing connectivity issues that seem (to the end user) that their connections are down when trying to access websites.
The malwarebytes/avast issue has been reported to cause malwarebytes to crash when malwarebytes is running in “Real Time” protection mode.
At first Avast tried to blame the problem on Malwarebytes, but reversed their statements after the Malwarebytes team issued this statement…
“Upon first discovering the conflict between Malwarebytes and Avast, Malwarebytes reached out to a product manager at Avast, who put us in contact with one of their Real Site feature developers. This developer initially indicated that there was a problem with Malwarebytes Web Protection driver implementation. After cooperation and receiving detailed analysis from our lead driver developer, Avast determined there was a flaw in their driver implementation. They have indicated they have a fix and plan to release an update, but they did not provide any timing. In the meantime any Malwarebytes users experiencing these issues are advised to disable Avast’s Real Site feature.”
And with my own customer base… I have a system in the shop that crashed one customers laptop after he ran the update and his issue was resolved after removal of Avast.
I found the recommend fix to turn off the Avast webshield component or Malwarebytes real time protection, to be a useless workaround because in essence they are telling their customers to turn off their antivirus products. So what’s the point of having an antivirus program?
While some long time fans of Avast may wish to wait it out and see if they can fix the problem. RenoGeek recommends that Avast be removed from systems having these issues and be replaced with a stable antivirus product.