Although I've been using Amarok (v2.8.0) for some time now, today I started receiving warnings from Norton Internet Security about an "attack" on my computer originating from a file named 'kioslave.exe' in the Amarok installation directory (see screen print: https://www.dropbox.com/s/26cvi3iil0qus ... 9.png?dl=0). And what is 'www.shouted.fm'? Why is Amarok trying to redirect traffic to this web site? I'm running Amarok under Windows 7 Home Premium, with SP 1 installed.

You apparently have activated a script to use shouted.fm, you can simply disable it if you don't want it anymore. This is by no means something malicious done by us, 3rd-party scripts activated by the users are out of our reach as we don't make those scripts.
The file trying to be played by Amarok looks just like an online playlist from a radio station, so either you just ignore the warning if you want to continue to use the script, or disable the script.
Just make sure you do not erase anything in the Amarok folder, kioslave.exe is a needed file to handle sound.

FWIW: Norton is not exactly the most reliable virus scanner, and it looks like a false positive to me.

I've done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to activate any script using shouted.fm (or any other 3rd. party web site), and I can't find any setting that refers to shouted.fm, so I'm unable to disable it. Maybe if you told me where I could find it, I could disable it. I can't ignore the warning, because Amarok no longer works, it's broken.

As for Norton, it sometimes reports false positives, like any other anti-virus program. That doesn't make it "unreliable". I'd rather put up with the occasional false positive than have my computer infected with a virus. If it is a false positive, maybe the people that support Amarok should contact Norton themselves. I'm certainly not going to remove Norton just so I can use some MP3 player.

From the screenshot you showed there was either a stream or a podcast from shouted.fm, this can also be a local playlist file. shouthed.fm being an online radio station, you can play this source probably without any scripts. I know there was a script for it, but if you didn't activate it, then ignore that part.

FWIW: I didn't suggest to remove Norton, quite the contrary, you can actually combine it with another more reliable anti-virus, the built-in anti-virus in recent Windows versions is reportedly quite good.

Anyway, we can't do anything against false positives, but you can ignore the warning about kioslave.exe, as it is a needed part of any KDE software to run on Windows.

When did Amarok break? After that anti-virus warning? Then maybe some essential part was moved to quarantaine, and this needs to be reverted.

As I've already said, I'm using Windows 7, so the quality of the anti-virus program in recent versions of Windows is irrelevant.

Amarok broke when Norton issued the alert about 'kioslave.exe', although the file doesn't appear to have been quarantined. Norton is just blocking whatever it's trying to do, which seems to be required for Amarok to work properly. Why it's necessary for Amarok to connect with a third-party server, even though I'm not listening to any internet radio station or running any scripts (that I'm aware of, anyway), I'd still like to know.

P.S. I checked to see whether Norton quarantined any files and it hasn't.

I uninstalled Amarok, downloaded the latest version for Windows (2.8.0, the same version I had previously) and installed it. It's working, but now I'm getting a warning about another component of Amarok, 'kdeinit4.exe' (see https://www.dropbox.com/s/5koq9zpq7o0ww ... 6.png?dl=0).

This wouldn't be a "false positive", it's an actual access violation detected by Norton. Probably not anything nefarious, just a bug in Amarok, a "dangling pointer" or something.

Why isn't v2.9.0, released in March, 2018, available for Windows? Isn't anyone supporting the Windows version any more?