I have a Hotmail account setup in Outlook Express. Mail is retrieved correctly but, is not scanned by Avast! V4.8. I run Windows XP Pro SP2.
How do I configure Avast so that it does scan these emails?
Thanking you
Frank1
Yesterday you said:
However, I use FreePops to receive Hotmail into my Outlook Express on Pop port 2000 via FreePops, and these emails don't seem to be scanned by Avast!. Obviously I need to do something to Avast! to intercept these emails to be scanned.
Tech gave you the necessary information to have that mail scanned and you acknowledged it as working.
Today you said:
I have a Hotmail account setup in Outlook Express. Mail is retrieved correctly but, is not scanned by Avast! V4.8.
You might imagine we could be confused. I think I know what you might be telling us but before I guess would you please try to explain the apparent confusion. By the way, if my guess is right you will soon have more important problems than avast not scanning the account.
Sorry about the confusion.
Yesterday I asked about scanning Hotmail emails received by Outlook Express via FreePops. This is a pop3 server that retrieves non-pop3 emails and presents it to pop3 clients like Outlook Express. So the Hotmail account is set up in Outlook Express like it was a Pop3 with a different port to 110. This now works, as I said yesterday.
The free accounts that Hotmail now issues are not compatible with Outlook Express and that is why I need to use FreePops. However, I also have a very old Hotmail account that Outlook Express still downloads without any aids (like FreePops). This, now, is the one I would like to get to work with Avast.
If this is still not clear, please let me know.
Frank1
PS. alanfr what do you mean by “if my guess is right you will soon have more important problems than avast not scanning the account”?
The old free Hotmail accounts that gave you an IMAP like experience in Outlook Express (and in Outlook) used a Microsoft invented (and once private) protocol called WebDav. It was not really a mail protocol at all; it was a special browser protocol.
That being the case avast has never been able to scan it (nor has any other antivirus - at least publicly).
Russell over at FreePops does a screen scrape of the Web mail (I do not want to under-estimate the work involved in this or the excellent effort that Russell has made over the years) and converts it to POP. As the POP stream passes to your mail client avast is able to scan it.
I started to write the story of what happened in the past few years but it is too long.
The fact is Microsoft WebDav got hacked and is no longer secret. So Microsoft, as part of the development of Windows Live Mail (to replace Outlook Express in Windows generally and to replace Windows Mail in Vista) developed a replacement for WebDav. That replacement is called DeltaSync and has been provided with more security than WebDav and it works for all of the Hotmail accounts. Microsoft have announced that WebDav will cease to be supported on June 30 2008. From that date your old Hotmail account will not work with Outlook Express. To continue with Outlook Express and this account you will need to user FreePops for it too. Your alternative is to switch to Windows Live Mail as your client. All Hotmail accounts will work (for now) with Windows Live Mail as they used to with Outlook Express.
Please note that DeltaSync is still a proprietary Microsoft access method and cannot be scanned by avast.
A possible last ray of hope. Microsoft is very sensitive these days to regulatory concerns - perhaps even more so after the whopping fines imposed on them by the European Union.
One of their big concerns internally is the load they have to support on their servers while also competing with Google for space provision etc. DeltaSync has been designed to reduce the load on their servers so they want to encourage as many folks as possible to switch to Windows Live Mail for Hotmail (if they insist on not just using the Web). However, to avoid antagonizing the regulators further they have said that they will eventually provide free POP and SMTP service again for all Hotmail accounts. This is a burden they do not want (POP is much less efficient than DeltaSync in terms of server overhead and becomes increasingly so as you are allowed more space on the server) so they will probably delay this provision for some time after June 2008 to encourage as many as possible to move to Windows Live Mail.
Hope that helps.
Later edit: For updated information on the termination of WebDav support please see this post.
alanrf, as I understand from what you are saying, the mail for the new Hotmail accounts arrives, is received by FreePops, then transferred to Outlook Express with Avast intercepting to check it. This is a far better proposition than NOT checking it.
I guess I need to reconfigure the older Hotmail account in Outlook Express to use FreePops as well so that the mail is checked. I think I will do it before 30th June so that I am not surprised by not being able to get the emails at all in Outlook Express.
I don’t have Windows Live Mail. Since Avast will not be able to check those emails either, I don’t think I will switch. When they provide the Pop3 service I’ll be able to use Outlook Express without Freepops and have Avast check the emails.
Thanks for all that info.
Frank1
I think you have got what I intended to convey - thanks for persevering through it all.