I have the free version of Avast installed, the free version of CA Antispam and Outlook Express.
Recently I’ve had a problem which appears as if something is chomping up my emails before I get them. Outlook tells me that I have 7 new emails - but there are only 5 in my Inbox. The others have disappeared - nowhere to be found - not in my Antispam folder, not in the deleted items. Sometimes the email appears momentarily in the list and then disappears. I’ve spoken to techs at CA Antispam and I’m pretty confident its not that program, which only leaves the antivirus.
Is it possible that Avast is too sensitive and is overdoing its job?
Nope, avast doesn’t delete autonomously, it scans and alerts to infection. If an infection is found, you are required to give your choice of action. So I presume that you didn’t get a virus alert when these were received ?
I have no idea how the CA AntiSpam works, so I have no idea how it might interact with avast’s localhost proxy it uses to scan email before it hits your inbox.
I use MailWasher Pro and that is independent of the email client, I first have MW Pro check email that found or marked to be spam/suspect is deleted from the email server before it calls OE to download the remainder and that works great for me. There is a free version but it only works with a single email account.