sorry if this is a stupid question but how do i know if they are scanned and how do i know the result from it being scanned? i put settings to insert message but i dont see any.
i changed to avast from avira because it has email scanning and no popup but i dont know now.
To see if avast! is scanning emails, check one of these points:
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Is the avast icon (the special one of email scanning) be shown in the system tray?
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Is your email header with the lines X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS XXXXXX-X, XX/XX/2008), Inbound message and X-Antivirus-Status: Clean? (Right click the message, choose Properties and Details)
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Are clean notes added at the bottom of the email? (Internet Mail provider settings)
[b]You can test the security of your email system here: http://www.gfi.com/emailsecuritytest/[/b]
Which is your email provider? GMail? Does it use SSL connection?
erm i use hotmail, on windows live mail and the header, the contents or the bottom of the message say nothing of the sort about clean/infected/avast or anything and i havent seen any special icon spinning only the i and the a(spinning)
Well, I did not ask your operational system… but I suppose it’s Vista or XP.
I think other more knowledge people can further help you. I’m not sure how Windows Live Mail works, maybe it does not use pop3/smtp connections (like email programs) and it just use something like “webmail”. If so, WebShield will scan the traffic and Standard Shield the files being processed.
just checked the email security test whatchamacallit and windows live mail blocked them all, but avast never said a word, and no spinning icon in system tray, i dont know whether this is good or not because it caught the viruses but avast didnt check them.
ah yes its vista and i dont know much about windows live mail but i thought it was pop3 but i dont know anything to be honest but i would like to get this sorted, thanks for your help, where could i find more expert helpers who know about this stuff?
Wait for them… maybe Alanrf is the guy. Maybe David or Polonus know…
If using Hotmail as web mail only (not pop3 account) with windows live mail which is an email client that can convert the web-mail content into its own special inbox, etc.
This is because it uses the MS proprietary DeltaSync conversion software and no other application has access to this proprietary software (other than MS email clients, Outlook, Windows Live Mail, possibly OE).
So effectively it isn’t using the POP3 protocol, but a proprietary protocol that avast ‘can’t’ scan.
So unless you have a POP3 Hotmail account and it is being downloaded conventionally using port 25 (not SSL) and POP3 protocol, avast can’t scan this (nor can any other AV).
When MS executes the promised demise of WebDav (now complete) you will not be able to use Hotmail with OE any longer and the only mail client that will work with Hotmail will be Windows Live Mail (the replacement for OE). Neither avast, AVG, etc. will be able to scan Hotmail there since it is accessed by the new proprietary MS protocol DeltaSync - the replacement for WebDav.
ok i appreciate that avast is doing what it can, but am i safe like this? because hotmail blocked the virus tests, but avast didnt scan them.
how can i set this up so avast can?
Read my post agaion, you can’t get avast to scan it unless you are using a POP3 Hotmail email account.
yes ok, but how can i change my setup so that my emails are scanned by avast without changing my email address, use online emails instead of windows live mail? im just asking.
As I said you can’t because unless you have a hotmail pop3 account, which doesn’t use the MS proprietary DeltaSync conversion software and no other application has access to this proprietary software.
This is outside of the control of avast and all you can do to change that is by using a pop3 email account.
Using only web mail, e.g. viewing it with your browser, the Web Shield would scan the html content and any attachments you save to your hard disk, should be manually scanned.
ok thanks, if say for instance i got a new email address, but i wanted to use windows live mail, whats ones could still be scanned by avast? or is it WLM thats causing the problems?
sorry i dont know much about this.
i heard gmx is good, would that be scannable on WLM with avast?
also another question, do you think the hotmail virus scanning engine is sufficient? it found the test viruses in the GFI test
thanks
would it help if i used say, thunderbird with this same email address? just curious
Let’s try to cover the main issues here.
You seem mostly interested in your Hotmail account. Hotmail is not your common or garden email account.
Let’s just touch on non-Hotmail accounts before coming back to Hotmail.
For regular email accounts that provide you with POP/SMTP servers there are two possibilities:
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you are allowed by the mail servers to use unsecured ports (typically 110 for POP and 25 for SMTP). Then avast can scan these emails (and insert “clean” messages id you wish)
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you are (more and more frequently these days) required by the mail servers to use secure connections (more for their benefit than yours to be honest) but this means that the present release of avast cannot scan the emails delivered this way. They can be but it requires that you configure and run a free third party program called STunnel that manages the secure connections and still allows avast to scan the emails safely and securely within your own system.
So let’s get back to Hotmail.
Microsoft wants you to use Windows Live Mail (WLM) with your Hotmail account. With WLM you get, with any Hotmail account, an IMAP like experience where it synchronizes all all your folders on the server with WLM. As you have been advised it uses a proprietary Microsoft protocol called DeltaSync. This is, as David described, the secret successor to the old WebDav protocol that manages “http” enabled Hotmail accounts that work with Outlook Express (and despite the comment by David is, in fact, still alive and kicking despite being under sentence of demise as some at yet to be specified date). The reason MS makes all Hotmail accounts work with WLM and DeltaSync is, surprise surprise, because this is a much less expensive load on their Hotmail server farm. As you have been advised avast does not now and cannot in the future scan emails delivered in WLM via the DeltaSync protocol.
At the same time the Microsoft folks don’t want too much trouble over their proprietary access method and all those nasty antitrust objections. So after they rolled out WLM and got as many folks as possible to use WLM and Hotmail they then also rolled out regular POP/SMTP servers for Hotmail (again - after a gap of many years). So you can now use POP/SMTP servers in many countries (the UK for one) to access your Hotmail account with any email client (including WLM). However, they do require that you use secured connections to access their POP/SMTP servers (please see case 2 above for POP/SMTP servers). So, to scan Hotmail now you would need to use Hotmail’s POP/SMTP servers and use the STunnel program mentioned above.
avast is planning to deliver this year release 5. Within release 5 they have advised the function of STunnel to manage secure email connections and allow avast to scan the emails delivered on them will be provided within avast itself. That means if you can wait a little longer and you use the Hotmail POP/SMTP servers for your Hotmail account in WLM (rather than the “http” connection) then avast will be able to scan the Hotmail messages.
Other options:
There are functions that convert Hotmail accessed via the Web interface to POP and even some that will provide SMTP conversion for Hotmail.
I will not go into these in detail unless you want to after reading the above information. Suffice to say that I get my Hotmail delivered daily in Thunderbird via the Thunderbird Webmail add-on that allows me to read my Hotmail accounts, send to my Hotmail accounts and have them scanned by avast, including downloads from custom folders on Hotmail too. Oh, they do the same for my Yahoo accounts as well.
thanks for making it a bit clearer, all this jargon isnt easy to follow but thanks, so how might i go about changing this server to a pop/smtp, does just downloading this stunnel do that or is it more complicated.
thanks in advance
you say insecure, is that a bad way to use it? or is it ok when avast scans;
will i be as safe when using the wlm scanner other than avast.
With Hotmail you are never going to be allowed to use a non-secured connection … so this is not really an issue.
WLM has no scanner involved … it is just a plain old email client running on your system. Hotmail does scan emails within itself.
so if i download this stunnel, i will have avast scanning them yes? or do i need something to change it to pop/smtp server?
sorry im a bit slow