Sometimes Avast Antivirus may be blocking you from running a program or accessing a web page, which you know is totally safe. Usually, it’s because of the low application occurrence within the Avast community. Therefore, Avast can’t properly tell if the program is safe or not, and will try to protect you.
- Avast Web Shield
- Avast Web Shield Blocking Internet
- Avast Web Shield Blocking Access To Websites
- Avast For Mac Web Shield Blocking All Internet Access
Also, Avast detects so-called ‘Potentially Unwanted Programs‘, which are actually wanted in some cases, and so-called ‘False-Positives‘, which means the program is safe but Avast’s detection is wrong. Unfortunately this often happens with popular games and services like League of Legends (LoL), Steam, GoG Galaxy, Minecraft, uTorrent, BitTorrent, Windows Update, Google, Java, Chrome and other launchers which are being often updated. Usually the false-positive detection lasts only a few hours, but can be very annoying.
'Avast WebShield has blocked access to this page because the following certificate is invalid: google.com' Note that this will give this message from Yahoo, Bing, and a number of other sites.
Quick Summary
- Make sure the blocked file or webpage is not malicous by testing it at www.virustotal.com
- Add it as exception by going to Avast user interface » Settings » General » Exclusions
- Confirm by clicking OK
Avast Web Shield
Read more detailed steps and other options including screenshots below.
When Avast blocks something, you will always get a pop-up notification informing you about the threat.
Solution/Fix for the Invalid Certificate Issue Caused by the HTTPS Scan
Recently a lot of Avast users (especially the ones running Windows XP) are experienced an issue when Avast has been blocking several major websites because of the invalid cloudflaressl.com certificate. The full message on the pop-up is ‘Avast Web Shield has blocked access to this page because the following certificate is invalid: [name of the certificate]‘.
To fix this try one of the following actions:
- Disable HTTPS scanning by going to settings » Active Protection » Web Shield » Customize » Main settings » Un-check ‘Enable HTTPS scanning‘ and restart your computer
Disabling HTTPS Scanning in Avast 2018 Web Shield Settings
Solution/Fix When Avast is Blocking Internet Connection Completely
Sometimes Avast may even block completely the Internet access so user is not able to visit any website. If this happens to you, try one of the following actions:
- Repair your Avast installation by going to Programs » Uninstall a program » Avast » select Repair and restart your computer
- Disable HTTPS scanning by going to settings » Active Protection » Web Shield » Customize » Main settings » Un-check ‘Enable HTTPS scanning‘ and restart your computer
Solution/Fix When Avast is Blocking Specific Website, Program or Game
There are two ways to unblock any program or website from Avast blocking. Please note, you should do it only if you are 100% sure the blocked file is safe for you and your computer. Even if you own the blocked site, doesn’t mean it wasn’t hacked and injected with dangerous malware. For checking the program/file with other Antivirus vendors, you can use online detection at VirusTotal.
1. Add Blocked Program or Website to Exclusion List (Whitelist) to Unblock it
Using the exceptions in Avast you can simply add any file or URL to the list of exclusions and exclude it from scanning and shield protection, therefore also from blocking. For more information about adding exceptions, check our full guide ‘How to Add File/Website Exception into Avast Antivirus 2018‘.
Adding File/Folder/Program/Website URL Exception into Avast 2018
2. Temporarily Turn Off Avast Protection
If you want install or run a program but it’s being blocked by Avast you can simply turn off Avast shields for a short period of time. For more information about turning off Avast or it’s shields, check our full guide ‘How to Turn Off (Pause, Disable) Shields in Avast Antivirus 2018‘.
Temporarily Disabling Avast Protection from the Windows Tray
3. Report a False Positive Detection to Avast
We also strongly suggest to report the detection you believe is a false positive directly to Avast team. They will look into it and eventually confirm the reported file, software, or website is clean.
Link to report is included on every in-product pop-up displayed when the harmful webpage or file is blocked. Just click on ‘Report the file as a false positive‘.
Avast Web Shield Has Blocked a Harmful Webpage or File Pop-up
Then you need to fill-in following simple form. In the additional info you can add a link from VirusTotal scan. Don’t forget to check the option ‘I know what I’m doing‘ and click on ‘Submit‘.
Avast In-product Form for Reporting False Positive Detection of Files or Websites
Alternatively you can use the official web form for reporting false positive detection.
Official Avast Web Form for Reporting False Positive Detection of Files or Websites
Additional Notes
Although we have used Avast Free Antivirus 2019 screenshots in this article, these steps are also applicable for all Avast Antivirus solutions (i.e. also for Avast Pro Antivirus, Avast Internet Security, or Avast Premier) running the latest version available.
Avast Web Shield Blocking Internet
Steps are relevant for all Windows versions – Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 (including Anniversary Update).
Avast Web Shield Blocking Access To Websites
Managing exceptions or turning off Avast protection may leave your computer at risk.
As soon as I installed the new version of the avast! antivirus on my Windows 8.1 PC, I started to have a strange problem. I could no longer access any of the websites over the HTTPS protocol. Trying to access even the known secure sites like Google and Yahoo showed me expired or invalid certificate errors. Assuming it to be some malware attack, I scanned all of my hard disk with avast! antivirus, and then with Malwarebytes’ Antimalware but could not find anything. After thirty minutes had been spent, I finally started to go through the avast! settings and figured out the culprit – avast! was set to scan HTTPS traffic and was injecting its own SSL/TLS certificate in place of the original certificates of different websites.
There are two solutions for this problem – either you allow the avast! certificate as an exception in various applications like Firefox, Chrome, Thunderbird etc., or you just disable the HTTPS scanning in avast!. The second method is much easier and you do not have to make changes in different applications individually. Here is how you can disable HTTPS scanning in avast! antivirus to fix the untrusted connection / invalid certificate / expired certificate errors :
- Double-click on the avast! antivirus icon in the Windows system tray to open the main avast! interface. You can also launch it from Start Menu or the Search Charms.
- In the avast! antivirus window, click on the Settings near the left-bottom corner.
- In the avast! settings window, select Active Protection from the left panel. Then click on Customize shown for the Web Shield module.
- Under the main settings for the Web Shield, un-check the checkbox that says Enable HTTPS Scanning and click on the OK button.
- That’s it. Now you can access various websites using the HTTPS protocol without any problem in any web browser.
Conclusion: Disabling the HTTPS scanning for avast! antivirus can solve some of the issues that you may have when accessing the secure websites over the HTTPS protocol. But at the same time, it makes your PC a little but less secure as avast! won’t be able to scan any malicious code being downloaded over a secure connection. If you do not want to disable HTTPS scanning, then you will have to add the exceptions for every secure website that you want to visit in a web browser like Firefox.