Email Scanning

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I have gotten info from another forum that promotes avast and they said its best to turn off email scanning in any antivirus. I want to know from someone here do I need to turn it off? Is it true? what does it hurt or slow down?, or is it a matter of preference… I have it on and scanning with no problem and using windows mail in Vista home premium.

2

Rubbish, email scanning is still essential as email still represents a large proportion of virus infection.

I have no idea what reason they give (?), but the avast Internet Mail provider when set to High can be the first indication that you have an undetected mass mailer trojan on your system. As when set to high it will detect multiple identical emails in a period of time, giving you a clue to the infection so you can take further action.

So far from turning it of I would suggest you increase the sensitivity to Hugh.

3

Thanks I have it set to High already but here is what was said

"Cloudeight has recommended not to use for email for years; it is not necessary and causes a number of conflicts. Many other tech sites are starting to agree on this too…finally

Our Article: http://thundercloud.net/infoave/tutorials/...nning/index.htm

Why You Don’t Need Your Anti-Virus Program to Scan Your E-Mail
We will explain why we stand by this and why many experts stand by this as well.

First, email is a just a file. A file like any other files. Email whether you read it or not, is stored on your hard drive. Malicious files attached to an email are located on your hard drive. To an anti-virus scanner it does not matter whether the offending file arrived by email, arrived by file-sharing, or arrived by download. It is all the same to it. Any good up-to-date anti-virus will prevent you from opening a malicious worm or virus no matter how it arrived. Until and unless you click the attachment the virus or worm will not execute. And if you’re using Outlook Express, and you have kept it updated with the latest patches from http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ it will not execute merely by looking at your email.

Our advice is sound. Email scanning might have been useful years ago, but not anymore. We’re not sure it ever was. Six or seven years ago one could wander the Internet and open emails rather freely. Viruses were rare and the number of people using anti-virus programs was small. With the Internet Boom of 1999 came an influx of millions of new people using the Internet and millions of new potential targets for those who have nothing better to do than to ruin other people’s fun. So worms, Trojans, and viruses became numerous, but still few used good anti-virus protection.

Email Scanning by any anti-virus is not recommended because the harm and delay that scanning can cause don’t justify the minimal (if any) benefits to be derived. One of the biggest problem caused by email virus scanners is corrupted Outlook Express DBX (data) files. If these files become corrupted, whatever mail you have stored in them will be unreadable. Email virus scanning is the number one cause of corrupted DBX files; and hence the biggest cause of unrecoverable email. Other problems are minor but they’re a nuisance: Aggravating delays in sending or receiving email being among the top nuisances.

Many others do agree with us on shutting off email scanning in your anti-virus program. The following article by Tom Koch, a Microsoft MVP explains it best. Mr. Koch details not only why you should turn off your email scanner but how Outlook Express works, as well as other interesting and little known Outlook Express facts. Here is an excerpt from his excellent article by Tom Koch:

"…When encountering the symptoms of DBX corruption, many people immediately fear that their computer is infected with a virus. As surprising and ironic as it may seem though, the most common cause of DBX corruption is not a virus, but rather anti-virus programs that are configured to scan incoming or outgoing e-mail. Even the most well-known anti-virus programs have exhibited this problem from time to time. To lessen the risk of such corruption you should disable the e-mail scanning module in your anti-virus program. This is usually easy to do by looking at the user-configurable options in the anti-virus program. It is not at all necessary to scan e-mail for viruses to protect your computer.

Now before you dismiss me as mad, let me explain why e-mail scanning is unnecessary. Almost every anti-virus program for Windows installs by default a system scan that runs in the background every time Windows starts. This scan is necessary to protect your computer. If you receive a virus in an e-mail attachment, the virus cannot do anything at all until you actually open the attachment. …"

See http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/commun...corruption.mspx to read the rest of this article."

4

I will try and keep it short, most of their arguments resolve around OE.

  1. OE’s draconian measure of possibly suspect files not only blocks execution or opening of a number of files but the attachment of files which they consider a risk and would you believe they even consider .zip files a risk, one of the most common attachments. Zip files are by their nature inert, first you have to open it then extract the file/s inside and then execute.

  2. avast is one of the few AVs that can actually remove an infected email from within a .dbx file without corrupting it.

  3. avast isn’t scanning in the .dbx files but in the localhost proxy area it creates, so any infected email is intercepted ‘outside’ the inbox and this makes it easier to deal with, rather than allow what could be an infected email onto your HDD and having the complication of having to deal with it later.

  4. I think we have covered the proposed harm, as far as delay goes, for me thee is a little delay whilst email is scanned in/out, but it most certainly isn’t something that is so much to consider not scanning.

So there you have it in regard to avast and OE there argument is slightly flawed, but it is your system and your choice and I think you have the information to make your own decision.

5

Thanks so much, My decision is already made to keep it on and thanks again for being the authority and forum for avast. Its good to know we can could on you all. before I go One thing is my neice has 8 providers on her pc why I have 6 and we both have pro and the latest. Did something happen in the instalation. No problem just a question.

6

I concur with David 100% on this! Email scanning is VERY minimal, if any, slowdown on my system. The potential of any unusual attachment prevails still in email. Out of ALL the Anti Virus services, I put email at the top, even above web browsing scanning. Many times people read email in HTML, and that can be dangerous is one of the HTML code is infected. On my OE I always set the read messages to “plain text” in a Pop Peeper email checker program I have, I only have it set to Rich Text format. Check the setting “Never send a read receipt” is also a good safety valve.

7

Your welcome.

If you don’t use MS Outlook (not express) the outlook/exchange provider isn’t enabled by default, so that is likely to be one. Since you didn’t mention what providers you do have running ?
So I couldn’t even hazard a guess as to why.

I only have 4 providers running, but that is by choice as I don’t use P2P or IM applications so that eliminates the requirement for two and as I use the Home version I don’t have the Script blocker.

8

I am using windows mail with Windows vista home premium, I only have 4 providers running, internet mail (high) Network shield (normal) Standard shield (normal) and Web shield (high) I do use P2P applications and from time to time yahoo messenger but I haven’t had any problems

9

You should enable the P2P and Instant Messaging providers, double click the avast ’ a ’ icon (if you see a ‘Details…’ button, click it), select the icon for the provider/s you wish to start, click the ‘Start’ button and answer Yes to the question to persist the changes.

10

instant message is there but there is no P2P

11

I’m sorry but both these links are broken due to … in the middle. Valid link to Koch column is
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/community/columns/filecorruption.mspx

12

update link http://thundercloud.net/infoave/tutorials/email-scanning/index.htm

13

Did you do a selective installation ?
If so you can correct this using the windows Add Remove programs, select ‘avast! Anti-Virus,’ click the Change/Remove button and Change, click next and look for the list of providers and tick the box next to the P2P option, OK your way out.

14

thanks got it

15

Your welcome, that was quick, you must have been waiting ;D

16

I was an thanks so much for your help, The best antivirus I have used so far, I was sold on nod32 for years until it started to give me trouble with vista. when do you think there will be an update to the program

17

There is always continuing development and the main program update will be version 5 but that is around the middle of the year I believe, though there is no fixed date.

There is nothing to stop other interim updates being released in the interim. The place you will find out first is here on the forums. They usually release a beta version notified on the forums for those forum members happy to use the beta release, not something to be treated lightly, especially if using it on a non-test system.