Can Avast scan e-mail for accounts like Hotmail? Or does the Standard Shield catch those viruses? ???
The Standard Shield scans those types of email accounts.
Hotmail is webbased. Avast as well as all other av applications needs a pop/smtp/imap mail address before it can protect mail. So it does not scan/protect hotmail.
However, when you safe a message/attachment to your local disk, Avast’s on-access scanner will scan it since you are accessing a file.
Well in fact it does. avast! checks all cached files and all files (attachements) that you upload or download. Also Hotmail has integrated McAfee scanner,so you have a dual layer antivirus protection.
Web based email accounts are no differen’t to browsing regular web pages, the content is downloaded into your browser cache (where as RejZor said they are scanned by the on-access scanner) and are then displayed on your monitor.