Avira Antivirus has gained popularity as a reliable and serious antivirus system in Germany. Unlike competitors like Kaspersky and Norton, Avira is often touted as “bloatware” free, meaning it does what it needs to do without consuming too many system resources in the process.

We have found Avira to be a very good alternative to many of the popular antivirus applications, as it offers an effective solution without inhibiting the underlying performance of your system. However, it suffers from a core problem, which is that if you load it onto your system, it may actually appear to not load.

The way Avira works is with a “loader” system. This works similar to the Windows control panel and essentially means that you can manage your Antivirus / Internet Security / etc without having to load each application individually. This loader is what most people experience as not actually showing up after installing Avira.

Typical symptoms of the problem are that it will install Avira and then try to load it by clicking its icon (either on the desktop or in the “quick launch” bar). As long as your “click” registers (your system looks like it is actually doing something), nothing happens.

The problem is that the Avira “service” does not load correctly. Usually this is due to a permission issue with Windows, but it can have other causes that are too numerous to list.

The solution is to close the Avira service and then reload it. This should either make the system load on your screen, allowing you to install / uninstall the various components you need, or make the system work as efficiently as possible:

• Press Windows + R keys on your keyboard

• Type “services.msc” and press OK

• This will load the “services” window – scroll down to “Avira Service Host”

• Right click and select “Start”

• Close the window

• Double-click the “Avira” icon again.

• This time, it should load

The most important thing to keep in mind with this is that it is designed to run as smoothly as possible on as many systems as possible. If it doesn’t load after doing the above, you’ll need to restart your PC and then try the steps again.

Often times, there are issues with services that are called before an application is loaded, which must be resolved by ensuring that the system can read the application correctly.