The Internet is aflutter today with news that many people are having problems with Avira Antivirus Premium and Avira Internet Security.

Apparently, Avira is blocking legitimate applications, thus rendering many PCs all but unusable since even basic programs like Notepad won't start.

Avira has responded with a Knowledge Base article (complete with screenshots) on How to add an exception for a blocked application in Avira".

Adding an exception is easy, albeit something people are upset about having to do in the first place. Alternatively, some folks are suggesting disabling Avira's ProActiv Protection as another possible solution, but that's something we'd discourage since it lowers measurably your PC's security.

Manually adding programs to the blocked applications exceptions list is a hassle, but chances are you only use a handful of programs regularly, so it's really not that time consuming to do, and it's certainly safer than disabling ProActiv.

Given that the first reports started showing up on Avira's forums last night and they already have documentation of the workaround up, their response time thus far has been pretty good.

No news yet as to when to expect a full solution.