It is the heuristics tab in the Internet Mail scanner. To avoid the warning Internet Mail Scanner > Customize > Heuristics tab > Move slider to “Custom” > Click Customize > See attachment check options.
I do not advise this for the average user.
However avast is giving a warning it is not stopping the content. Outlook Express does block the user from opening the attachment.
Outlook Express does block the user from opening the attachment.Fully agree unless the change you mentioned is made.
Avast also sends a notice with the following Subject:
[avast! heuristic - WARNING]
As Alan said it isn’t avast but OE and it is easy to sort without a Registry hack.
In OE6, Tools, Options, Security tab, uncheck the ‘Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus.’ This also stops them being attached and sent as well as not being able to save or open them. OE’s pathetic attempt to protect you.
As Alan said it isn't avast but OE and it is easy to sort without a Registry hack.David you need to re-read Alan's post. The message that is generated does come from avast.
We old guys …
Bob, I rather suspect David (as I have often done) looked at this thread and saw my (to him) new post at the bottom of page one of the thread and did not notice it had moved onto another page. So David’s response is quite correct in response to my lame misunderstanding of the way to fix the issue in OE versus Outlook at the bottom of page one (I confess I have never been an OE aficionado). Of course, David’s graphics always beat my text descriptions hands down.
David will catch up when the new day dawns in middle England.
If I live long enough and ever get up to the posting levels of you guys I suspect somebody will have to correct every post of mine.
Well there is most certainly some confusion in this topic as Alan said my reply was in response to his post on using a registry hack to stop OE blocking .exe files, etc.
Today is the first time I have seen Reply #16 to #21 which were posted before my reply in #22 so I haven’t a clue what is going on. The forums post function usually blocks the post if there has been a reply whilst you were compiling a response to allow you to read those replies and modify or even delete that response.
So perhaps we can this to the search inconsistencies that Alan has recently commented on ;D
I hadn’t previously experienced this alert on attachment by the Internet Mail provider and Mine is set to High so that would bump up the Heuristic checks and it alerted on the way out and on the way back in. You can disable this by setting the Internet Mail, Heuristics sensitivity to Custom, Customize button and uncheck the Attachment check (according to name), see image 2 and this gets past the problem you are experiencing of the attachment check by file name.
I am having trouble finding the Internet Mail - Heuristic setting.
Please walk me through so I can sut this off and allow messages with .exe file attachments to come through.
Thanks so much!
Peter
There was me thinking a picture was worth a thousand words ;D
Left click the avast icon
From the On-Access Scanner window, if you see a Details… >> button click
Now select the Internet Mail provider and click the Customize button.
Select the Heuristics tab and you are at the point in the image.
You can disable this by setting the Internet Mail, Heuristics sensitivity to Custom, Customize button and uncheck the Attachment check (according to name), see image 2
The heuristic tab of settings does not block .exe file as attachments by default…
Are you sure the message come from avast and not from Outlook Express?
Just look at the images in Bob’s and my posts, it does come from there (even if the Internet Mail is set to Normal) and the instruction plus image in my reply #25 show how to get rid of it.
It stops outbound email with .exe attachments in their tracks, it doesn’t get to your email client.
This happens even if you didn’t modify OE security settings not to allow attachments to be saved, etc. as in my Reply #22 so it most certainly is avast alerting.
I see… living and learning… I’ve forgot the check the “Attachment check… content-type”.
Sorry, my fault.
Hi
It seems Avast DOES work with Live Mail, at least with the email from my ISP as mentioned in a post from “alanrf”. I know this because Avast came up with warning regarding a suspicious email just as I was checking my email a few minutes ago.
Many thanks to all
Abb N
Other ways to see if avast! is scanning emails:
Is the avast icon (the special one of email scanning) be shown in the system tray?
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)
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]
Tech said:
The heuristic tab of settings does not block .exe file as attachments by default..
Tech was absolutely correct.
The warning messages generated from avast do not block the attachment. They warn the user and give the user a choice of not sending the message or continuing with the send or, in the case of an inbound message, of receiving the message to the Inbox or deleting it before it is received to the Inbox.
David has given the method of disabling the warning - there is no block to be disabled.
I believe we are all agreed that, in the case of Outlook Express, even if the file is received OE does prevent the user from accessing the attachment in its default setup.
Just an afterthought … Outlook Express (and also Vista’s Windows Mail), while still having a pulse, is on life support only. The relatively shiny new Microsoft inducement is Windows Live Mail … so get ready for the (eventual coerced) switch.
Windows Live is nothing more than a supped up Outlook Express
with the added feature to easily access your hotmail account.