Outbound email scanner scans as it sends?

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I just moved from McAfee to avast!4. With McAfee the outbound scanner scanned the email and then handed the entire thing off to be sent to the ISP. With avast! is looks like the outbound scanner is scanning as it is sending it to the ISP. Is that what it is doing?

Are there advantages to one method over the other?

I know that with McAfee it declared “email sent” as soon as it had scanned it and had started the upload to the ISP but the upload would complete later (especially for large emails).

With avast! the end of scanning and the end of the upload seem to happen at the same time.

Hmmm…

–Larry

2

Well, I didn’t get a response to the original post and in the meantime things have changed. So, another post.

I’m now running avast 4.8. It appears to me that the new smtp scanner is involved at the start and the end of the send but not during the send.

Is that right?

–Larry

PS: I know it is scanning because I asked avast to insert a scan results tag in the message and it did. It also claimed there was a potential virus in one attachment I tested with. And I can see the scanner activity at the start and end of the send.

3

There are two very different way of of email handling in avast.

One is the Internet Mail provider for regular email clients using POP & SMTP.

The other is the Outlook/Exchange plugin for Outlook (not Outlook Express) and also the plugin for The Bat.

So which mail client are you using?

4

For pop3 clients, OE, Thunderbird, etc (not Outlook and the Bat as Alan mentions), the Internet Mail provider, the email scanners uses a proxy so it intercepts ports 25, 110, 119 and 143 and scans them first before they are sent on there way or saved into the inbox.

To me I don’t see any beginning middle or end, the avast email scanner intercepts the email at that time you will see the avast email scanner icon in the system tray and subsequently in your inbox or sent items mail box.

5

Are you referring to the small blue circle with the letter (a) in it?

Am I supposed to see a particular email scanner icon in the system tray when I send or receive messages?

I use Microsoft Outlook by the way, and the plugin message appears when I execute Outlook.

6

Nightshade,

the icon with the arrow is the icon shown by the avast Internet Mail provider when it is actively scanning mail. If it is not actually scanning mail the icon is not shown. There is no icon shown by the Outlook plugin.

7

Ok,
What other instance apart from Outlook would I be sending or receiving emails?

8

Nightshade,

you already had this explanation before.

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=34742.msg291703#msg291703

9

No actually you dont understand my question.

I want to know apart from my current email provider, what other instance could I send or receive an email so to ensure that I would indeed see this icon that you mention.

It’s all very well telling me that it will show, but I would like to test it first to be safe.

Please tell me how I can do this without using Outlook, or is this not possible due to me already using the outlook plugin?

10

You can see it if you have any plain old POP/SMTP accounts in Outlook (not Hotmail/Live).

Just turn off the the Outlook provider for a while and use Outlook … the icon will show up as Outlook gets/sends your POP/SMTP mail.

If you do not have any plain POP/SMTP accounts then you cannot do this at all.

11

Sorry you have got me on that one.

How do I turn Microsoft Outlook off? never had to do that before.

What if I try Outlook Express instead of Microsoft Outlook, will the Internet Mail icon appear then?

12

The plugin?
Just left click the ‘a’ blue icon, click Details button to expand, click on the plugin at left and then Terminate it. Answer ‘yes’ to persist the changes.

13

Can it be turned back on again?

And if and when the mail icon appears in the system tray can it be removed and will it not return again unless I have the plugin turned off again?

14

Nightshade,

you are doing all this to see an icon that will only appear for a few seconds only for as long as it take to receive the mail?

If you want to.

Just remember to turn on the Outlook provider in avast again after you have seen the icon.

15

Ah, so it disappears after the mail has been either sent or received?

What happens if I click on send/receive to see if I have any new mail, but no new mail arrives, does the icon still appear on that occasion?

Remember it’s 98 S.E that I use…

16

As I said a few minutes ago:

when it is [b]actively[/b] scanning mail. If it is not actually scanning mail the icon is not shown

It appears for the brief time that you are actually connected to the POP or SMTP server.

17

But alanrf,

But you are saying that it appears for a brief moment when just connected to the POP or SMTP server, and in another sentence you are saying If it is not actually scanning mail the icon is not shown, that is 2 completely opposite statements is it not?

18

Would it be a good idea to actually terminate the Internet Email provider being that I use the Outlook Plugin?

19

No.

I explained all this to you the other day in the thread I referred you back to. Where you also responded that you would remember this.

20

alanrf

Sorry I remember it now.

I have been off work all week and not feeling great at all

Thanks for all your help including Tech.