1. Attachment safe?

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
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  1. A friend forwarded an attachment with a short message. Avast says “Inbound message clear.” Does that mean the attachment is safe to open? When I right-click the attachment, there is no option to scan it with Avast and no option to send it to, say, the Desktop where it could be scanned before opening.
2

Since Avast has scanned the message, it is safe to asume it is clean.
You should be able to safe the attachement anywhere you want.
How, depends on your email client.

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When I right-click the attachment, there is no option to scan it with Avast and no option to send it to, say, the Desktop where it could be scanned before opening.
The attachment is scanned when it arrives so there would be little point in having a button to scan it again. It is never I repeat never advisable to simply open an attachment directly from an email, rather you should save it to a folder 'attachments' say, the act of saving it to the folder should trigger standard shield to scan it again (depending on your settings, scan all created/modified files, etc.). So I believe you are well covered.
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Thanks for the quick replies. Very helpful. I feel safer now!