Can someone help me...
With my laptop? In the past few months it has taken to connecting to the internet while I have it set to only connect when I command it to do so.
It's a Lenovo, 2yrs old, WIN10, Firefox. I have Avast products such as the free antivirus and cleanup program that I run before and after my time online, every time.
The laptop is set to come on when I open the lid after which it chooses to connect within the first five minutes, today it was already connected with a notice from an Avast product on the screen. This pisses me off.
I have looked, several times, for any setting I might have missed but can't locate it within the ISP settings or the computer settings, both WIN and Lenovo. Could it be in the Avast settings or maybe Firefox? If so, where can I access that so I can turn this off?
Until I figure it out, I will shut down the unit completely each time I walk away for a while.
Thanks to anyone who can help! 
= new reply since forum marked as read
And has been mentioned a few times earlier. I'll Deal with it in the morning when I am wide awake and of a mind to deal with it. I'll just shut it down when I get off tonight, that part isn't such a big deal, maybe I should just do that every night anyway.
Thanks! 
I'll ask this evening when grandson gets home.
I think it's something else though. I need to renew my sub for the extra Avast product I use this month so maybe they are doing their annoying ploy to remind me. I always wait until the last two weeks to pay up and I use a prepaid CC and they keep trying to take payment from them when there's nothing there and sending me emails telling me the payment failed. Joke's on them, I do that so they can't just help themselves to a payment without my direction. Not into that so everything online is a prepay CC.
I'll be interested in what your grandson might have to say, though. Most of the best techs I've ever worked with were decades younger, they know their shit. 
Thanks!
If that was the case then it wouldn't be disconnected at all, even though the lid is closed. So when you open the lid it appears as if it had instantly connected.
If there's a way for you to do a clean reinstallation of Windows, I'd highly recommend it.
Lenovo makes great hardware, but in recent years, they've sold their soul to software distributors. Lenovo (and the others) take money from software houses to install their unnecessary programs (generally called "bloatware" ) on your computer.
A clean install of Windows will not have anything unnecessary installed by third parties. Your anti-virus and firewall are built in from the start.
This could be an opportunity to upgrade to Windows 11, which I personally like better than 10.
Don't reinstall unless you have the appropriate tech help. Back up your data frequently.
I see your posts a lot on DU.
In my back pocket for now. I will see what happens when I pay the fee for the cleanup program. I like having the extra cleanup, it catches a lot of stuff that WIN systems leave behind, I've relied on it for years over three different laptops. It's worth it, I get stalked, even though I've been retired for a while, so I pay for it and am usually quite satisfied.
But if that isn't the fix, I'll be investigating this idea.
Thank you!
More than once. Thank you!
It installs Windows services and one of those would be to connect to the net, overriding other settings to check for updates etc.
The only way to turn it off is to uninstall Avast, for which you may need a special program and a couple of restarts. You may not be keen to do this, but windows security is much better than it used to be and for a couple of years now, I've dispensed with outside anti-virus programs and use only the native windows services.
We are a much more sophisticated bunch of computer users than we were ten or twenty years ago. We know not to open dodgy attachments; the main danger is malicious web pages and code. There is an add-on for Firefox called NoScript that you can tweak to prevent the execution of malicious code when you browse. It's definitely worth getting used to. There are a few similar clone add-ons.
Feel free to PM if you like.
I'll look into that. I think I have to decide whether to keep Avast or not. Something to consider about the services.
Thank you!
Info, I will check these possibilities out and let you all know what the problem is when I find it!
