turning off email antivirus scanning

I've been trying to help a friend configure her computer so that she can use AVG to scan her email (we both have DSL through Sympatico - something about it being an SSL connection has complicated things for us). I had some trouble figuring out the right settings on my own computer, but did ultimately get it to work. No such luck with her system, though. Exact same settings, but I can't get email to go out or come in using Thunderbird or Outlook Express unless I disable AVG altogether. I've uninstalled/reinstalled both AVG and Thunderbird, but that hasn't done the trick.
In reading through the AVG Help Forum, I found a couple of instances of people being told it was okay to turn off the email scanner part of the program - the rationale being that since the program is running in the background all the time, it'll pick up any viruses that way.
I'm not sold on that idea, and I don't want to tell my friend to go ahead and disable the email scanning feature unless I'm sure she'll still be protected. If I have her turn off her message pane (i.e., no previews), would AVG's "resident shield" suffice for protection?
Thanks!

 

Yes. It should anyway. I use Etrust and I must confess that I do use the email scanning feature it provides but only because it doesn't cause me any trouble. If I had a problem with it I wouldn't lose any sleep from turning it off. I'd go without rather than spend days trying to figure it out. Some may say I'm nuts for saying this but in my opinion it's redundant given the fact that anything you open will be scanned by the AV program anyway.

Up until this newest version I've never used email scanning. If I get an email with an attachment, I've always saved it to disk before opening it and then scanned it manually by right clicking on the file I saved and selecting scan in the menu. If your friend is uncomfortable not having the email thing working show him/her how to do this.

If you want to test it without the email thing running, download the Eicar test file (it's harmless) and email it to your friend as an attachment. Then try opening the attachment from within the email and see if AVG catches it. If it does, you can rest assured that AVG is doing what it's supposed to do regardless of the fact that the email thing isn't running.

 

Hi Rebecca,

I don't have e-mail scanning turned on either (NOD32 on one installation and NAV2005 in another). As Zander mentioned, as soon as a disk write occurs, the "auto protect" feature (don't know what its called in AVG) will scan the disk file in realtime.

Another consideration: most ISP's now scan e-mail for you, I know MSN, Earhlink, and Comcast do.

Regards - Charles

 

Thanks, guys! I won't spend any more time trying to troubleshoot her email scanner issue then.

 

Hi Rebecca

AVG Free "Resident Shield" doesn't scan file closes by default, you have to manually enable it see here...

...unless it installs with different default options depending upon the OS it finds on the computer, that is

(the Resident Shield on-close scanning option certainly comes disabled by default if installing AVG onto Win98)

also, pls note comment by rsinfo in the other thread: that even after manually enabling the on-close scanning option, it seems to get re-disabled for you - best guess at the moment is that this happens when updating defs requires a restart of the computer afterwards. (I haven't been able to repeat this here, as yet)

The scandisk freeze with AVG on-close enabled, and AVG / *.CHK file issues only affect Win9x/ME, AFAIK


best wishes, HJ

 

Thanks for your input, Hugh. The woman whose computer I was working on is away for a couple of weeks, but I've bookmarked your other thread so that I can follow through on your suggestions when she returns!
Interestingly/bizarrely enough, the day before yesterday I could ONLY get Thunderbird to work on her computer with AVG's email scanning turned on! Three days ago, on the other hand, the identical settings consistently yielded "failed to connect to server" error messages, both incoming and outgoing. We've taken snapshots of the various settings (both AVG's and TB's server settings), so I know we're always using one of two configurations, and yet it seems to be a hit or miss thing. If we had any other choice for DSL where we live, I think we'd all be happy to jettison Sympatico - its darn settings have given most people here no end of troubles!

 

Hi Rebecca

I feel this may be a firewall issue; have just hit something similar with AVG and Outlook Express

when AVG scans email it has to intercept the connection the email client makes to the ISP server

the firewall "rules" which have been learnt to allow the email client to connect straight out to the ISP server won't necessarily allow for the intercepted connection

on the other hand, a firewall which has learnt how to handle the intercepted connection won't necessarily allow for a "straight" connection

Example: Outlook Express using SMTP for outgoing email
- without AVG scan:
Outlook Express connects out using TCP to smtp.ntlworld.com:25

- with AVG scan
Outlook Express connects out, using TCP, to localhost:10025
then AVG connects out, using TCP, to smtp.ntlworld.com:25

there's probably enough difference to baulk the connection?

so it might be worth removing the Zone Alarm permissions for Thunderbird, and getting ZA to learn how to do it over again

==

watch out though ! this thing has hidden depths.

I couldn't understand at first why my AVG wasn't scanning outgoing email when it looked here and here like it should have been - until I dived deep into the options email scanner properties, click Properties button, go to the Servers tab to find the smtp plugin had installed disabled (install default it seems)(for the OE plugin. Thunderbird may be different)

clicking "modify" here allowed me to activate the outgoing email scanner, but left me with "can't find server" until I made new firewall rules


best wishes, HJ

 

Hi Hugh-
If my friend's computer is still acting up when she returns, I may try uninstalling and reinstalling ZA for her - or perhaps just redoing Thunderbird's settings in ZA. It just seems weird/preposterous to me that the identical settings work some of the time, but not others!
Our settings are as follows:
Thunderbird outgoing settings without AVG scan:
TB requires smtphm.sympatico.ca:25

With AVG scan:
the settings are 127.0.0.1:5100

POP3 port for TB is 995, regardless of whether AVG scan is active, but when AVG is not scanning, the connection has to be checked off as "SSL" - with AVG, the "no/never" secure connection has to be checked.
POP3 server name changes from pophm.sympatico.ca without the scanning, to 127.0.0.1 with the scanning active.

Incidentally, for our purposes (with Sympatico), the AVG servers have to be set as "fixed hosts ", not "automatic ", otherwise we get an error message the instant we try to send/receive mail.