How to kill X-Antivirus header lines in emails? (v5)

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

These 3 header lines appear in all my email and newsgroup messages.

X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 100123-2, 01/23/2010), Outbound message
X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 100123-2, 01/23/2010), Inbound message
X-Antivirus-Status: Clean

I can see that they don’t appear if I turn off mail scanning. But is there any way to get rid of them while still actively scanning emails?

2

Just open Avast! and select Real-Time shields->MailShield->Expert settings->Behavior and deselect Insert note into clean message

3

That’s what I thought too, but it’s already deselected. Is it not working correctly?

4

I don’t think it can be disabled (it never could).

5

Hmm, maybe this is a bug, i hoppe that the Alwill Team can have a look at this

6

It’s not a bug. “Insert note into clean message” is meaning that avast add a note at the bottom of the mail. You can’t disable the header text.

7

That’s what I concluded too – unless there’s some way to affect it in the avast5.ini file…? I took a quick look but would probably need expert guidance there.

8

The details inserted into the header aren’t covered in the Mail Shield settings, which is off by default, so it isn’t something that can be changed in the UserInterface (UI). As far as I’m aware there is no avast5.ini setting, there wasn’t in 4.8.

I believe it is a requirement showing some sort of processing by a third party, possibly an audit trail, don’t really know. Who looks in the headers these days, how many people even know how to get into them ;D

9

Thanks. Guess I’ll have to disable the mail scanner temporarily to get rid of those headers.

My reason is privacy. Those headers are part of the identity of the sender. I want to remain as anonymous as possible in certain cases, for good reasons, I believe, not nefarious one. Of course 100 million people now use avast, but that’s still not everyone. It contributes to the overall profile.

10

Can you show me anywhere that this points to your identity/profile ?

X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 100124-0, 24/01/2010), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 100124-0, 24/01/2010), Inbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean

There is far more information in your email that you should be concerned about, like your email, the originating domain, IP, servers it passed through, your email client, etc. All of which could in theory be used to target you security wise.

So by comparison the header info on the fact it has been scanned is laughable.

If you use SSL email that at least keeps prying eyes out during transmission, etc. but once on the recipients system it is no longer encrypted. If that system is infected the information in the email (including headers) could well be harvested.

Security is a serious business the header info on the fact it has been scanned is an irrelevance.