I never did find a puff ball this year Thought about them a few days and then forgot all about it Seems that happens to me a lot Must be old age

I also have only the free version of Avast, since it provides the same anti-virus service as the paid one, and I don't need the few extra bells and whistles included in the paid version. However, if you want to continue paying for it, and need to check the expiration date, here is how: Right-click on the Avast ball in your task bar in the lower right of the screen; click on "About Avast"; after the panel opens up, the Maintenance menu should be open on the left...click on "Registration" and you'll see the date. It's standard procedure for Avast to send a reminder a couple of weeks in advance. If you can't tell whether the email comes from Avast.com, or you need extra help with this, you can always go to their web site and call the Support number. I also recommend you save your Avast license file in a safe place so you can easily have access to it if you ever need to reinstall it, and so you can remember the date. Here is a link that might be useful: Avast Support

go to that webshield area like above and look where it says scanned count if that shows actual numbers as a count and not zero or if you go to pages and that number does change it is ok if it is not changing then there could be a problem. Do you have zone alarm by any chance? because for some of us there was a conflict and we had to change a proxy setting in our browsers when using Avast. There is a thread on here about that which may turn up on a search, I had posted the directions on how to set it up. This page from the Avast forum also tells how to do that. Configuration of the Web Shield HTTP proxy

Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.4 Scan saved at 4:47:37 PM, on 9/18/2011 Platform: Windows XP SP3 (WinNT 5.01.2600) MSIE: Internet Explorer v8.00 (8.00.6001.18702) Boot mode: Normal Running processes: C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\ZoneLabs\vsmon.exe C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\AvastSvc.exe C:\WINDOWS\RTHDCPL.EXE C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe C:\Program Files\Zone Labs\ZoneAlarm\zlclient.exe C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\avastUI.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\ctfmon.exe C:\PROGRA~1\Webshots\Webshots.scr C:\Program Files\Logitech\MouseWare\system\em_exec.exe C:\Program Files\AGI\core\4.0\AGCoreService.exe C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\jqs.exe C:\Program Files\Common Files\LightScribe\LSSrvc.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\nvsvc32.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\SearchIndexer.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\SearchProtocolHost.exe C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\HiJackThis\HiJackThis.exe R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Page_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157 R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Search_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896 R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896 R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157 R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Window Title = Windows Internet Explorer provided by Comcast O2 - BHO: Adobe PDF Reader Link Helper - (06849E9F-C8D7-4D59-B87D-784B7D6BE0B3) - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEHelper.dll O2 - BHO: Groove GFS Browser Helper - (72853161-30C5-4D22-B7F9-0BBC1D38A37E) - C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\GrooveShellExtensions.dll O2 - BHO: avast! WebRep - (8E5E2654-AD2D-48bf-AC2D-D17F00898D06) - C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\aswWebRepIE.dll O2 - BHO: Java(tm) Plug-In 2 SSV Helper - (DBC80044-A445-435b-BC74-9C25C1C588A9) - C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\jp2ssv.dll O2 - BHO: JQSIEStartDetectorImpl - (E7E6F031-17CE-4C07-BC86-EABFE594F69C) - C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\lib\deploy\jqs\ie\jqs_plugin.dll O3 - Toolbar: avast! WebRep - (8E5E2654-AD2D-48bf-AC2D-D17F00898D06) - C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\aswWebRepIE.dll O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [RTHDCPL] RTHDCPL.EXE O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Logitech Utility] Logi_MwX.Exe O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [ZoneAlarm Client] "C:\Program Files\Zone Labs\ZoneAlarm\zlclient.exe" O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [avast] "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\avastUI.exe" /nogui O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NvCplDaemon] RUNDLL32.EXE C:\WINDOWS\system32\NvCpl.dll,NvStartup O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [ctfmon.exe] C:\WINDOWS\system32\ctfmon.exe ...