Hi all…I’m having a problem I hope you can help me with. Avast 4.8 works fine on my computer, but it is not scanning my e-mail.
I get my e-mail just fine, but it’s just not getting scanned. I’m having no other problems with Avast.
I use Netscape 7 and have Windows XP. My ISP is an inexpensive one that runs e-mail through a Google Mail client and then to me.
The “provider” of the On-Access Scanner I’m concerned with is Internet Mail, right? I tried fooling with various settings in it (and it definitely is “currently running”) but to no avail. Have any of you had this problem?
I know it’s not working for three reasons: (1) The little sphere in my system tray doesn’t rotate when I send or receive e-mail, as it does when I use the Web; (2) I set it up to put a note into the bottom of e-mails and that isn’t happening; and (3) the “last scanned” and “last infected” field in Internet Mail shows nothing.
I tried adding my SMTP and POP ports (under Internet Mail | Customize | Redirect) and tried to send an e-mail. It looked like it was trying to scan, but then I got an SMTP error when trying to send an e-mail. The reason I put in these additional ports is that the ones shown, i.e. 110 and 25, don’t match what’s in my e-mail program’s settings.
I was previously running AVG, but I disabled it, including running MSCONFIG to take it out of startup, though I haven’t actually deleted its files. AVG is gone from my system tray and there’s no sign of it in the Windows Task Manager.
Someone told me that Google Mail does virus scanning for you so I shouldn’t worry about it, but I just don’t like downloading e-mail to my computer, or sending it, without scanning it. And once in a while a spam e-mail does get through from the Google Mail utility.
I’m not at all familiar with how Google mail works. I suspect it is a HTML based hosting service like hotmail, or Yahoo mail, in which case there is no mail client; traffic arrives/departs via the browser. This being the case it will be scanned through the standard shield, not the mail shield.
I actually get my e-mail from the POP Gmail server via my ISP; it arrives via my e-mail program (Netscape Communicator), not my browser (which is Firefox).
to bring you up to date … Hotmail and GMail (legally known as GoogleMail in some areas) both offer POP/SMTP services freely available that work with email clients (like Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Windows Live Mail, Eudora etc.).
@Homeuser
Natively avast can only scan the email messages that are delivered via unsecured email connections (typically those using ports 110 for POP3 and 25 for SMTP). Gmail and Hotmail insist that their users make use of secured POP and SMTP connections with their servers. The whole point of secured connections is that they cannot be scanned by any one or any antivirus program.
With the current release of avast 4.8 to allow avast to scan emails delivered on secure connections it is necessary to use and configure a free third pary program called S-Tunnel. This program manages the secure connections and allows the delivered mail to be scanned by avast safely and securely inside the user’s system. However, it is expected that avast will release, within the next few months, avast 5 which is expected to provide, within avast, the same secure connection management now provided by S-Tunnel. With this release it should be possible to ask avast to manage the secure connections and to scan emails freed of the secure connections securely within your own system.
to bring you up to date … Hotmail and GMail (legally known as GoogleMail in some areas) both offer POP/SMTP services freely available that work with email clients (like Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Windows Live Mail, Eudora etc.