Email Certification Missing

[dannyg]

Hello, why is the email certification missing in the current version? The option is missing from mail shield behaviour. I had to install build 1424, turn on the certification, then upgrade to the latest build to keep this feature going.

[SafeSurf]

I believe it was removed in the current version 7.0.1456.

[DavidR]

Yes it has been removed as essentially it isn't a security feature, these messages can be faked and often are in SPAM/Malicious emails to lull the user into a false sense of security.

Your inbound emails gets scanned (as do outbound emails) and if infected will give an audible and visual alert, it will also modify the email Subject, if clean you get none of that. If you check the email headers you will still see that scan information.

The only real benefit of these clean notes is on outbound email where you are in effect promoting avast.

[dannyg]

I hear ya. But this feature has been around from the beginning of avast time and all of a sudden its gone. Here's my case for it. I am not concerned about the incoming tags but more of the outgoing tags. There are alot of viruses out there and alot more people with minor knowledge when it comes to technology.  I tend to send out alot of emails with attachments, having that tag at the end of the email message is like saying...'you might got infected somehow but it didn't come from me'. You see what i'm saying?

[Gopher John]

I hear ya. But this feature has been around from the beginning of avast time and all of a sudden its gone. Here's my case for it. I am not concerned about the incoming tags but more of the outgoing tags. There are alot of viruses out there and alot more people with minor knowledge when it comes to technology.  I tend to send out alot of emails with attachments, having that tag at the end of the email message is like saying...'you might got infected somehow but it didn't come from me'. You see what i'm saying?

In the past, I've gotten infected spam messages that had 'Scanned by whatever antivirus' or 'Certified clean'.  Spammers have used that trick in the past, so most people don't and shouldn't trust such a declaration at all.

[dannyg]

that's a good point.

But this feature has been around since the beginning. If for any reason, the user should decide whether to use the tags or not. I'm a long time paying customer.....i've paid for this feature. It should not be taken away.

[DavidR]

I hear ya. But this feature has been around from the beginning of avast time and all of a sudden its gone. Here's my case for it. I am not concerned about the incoming tags but more of the outgoing tags. There are alot of viruses out there and alot more people with minor knowledge when it comes to technology.  I tend to send out alot of emails with attachments, having that tag at the end of the email message is like saying...'you might got infected somehow but it didn't come from me'. You see what i'm saying?

I see what you are saying, but there is so little value in it; would you actually trust this sort of message if it were to come from another AV in something you received.

I know I don't trust anything that can so easily be faked and as I said given that this practice (of faking email security scans) has already been seen in the past.

[dannyg]

No of course not, i wouldn't trust that. The only real trust there is.....is the AV that is installed on our computers as they scan incoming and outgoing mail. We trust them to be updated, to be perfect, to catch everything. So whether its tagged or not makes almost no difference to us. I've been a hobbyist for 30 years, i could probably get by without even using an AV program. lol The best AV is the user him/herself. Once long ago, i was blamed by a friend for sending a virus and infecting their computer. An email PDF attachment that i had sent, i had to convince them it wasn't me which it wasn't......was some rogue zip file sent by someone else as i cleaned it up, it was not caught by their AV. This is mainly why i like the tagging......if emails get spoofed by the receiver's AV, don't care. But the AVAST name tag in there means something.....a great piece of software......and you'd think the AVAST folks would like the promotion.

[DavidR]

The avast scan is recorded in the email headers also so it isn't completely gone, you just need to know how to look at the headers.

[dannyg]

yeah i know, the average person doesn't know how to do that.
when its in the body, its just there for any eye to see.

[Pondus]

'you might got infected somehow but it didn't come from me'. You see what i'm saying?

nope, it could still come from you....what you are saying is avast did not detect anything

[dannyg]

well of course it could, if it wasn't detected to begin with, that's obvious.