Question about Avast mail scanner

[Northeast]

Hi Guys, I just want know about the Avast mail scanner as I check the scan for emails in Hotmail, yahoo, Gmail and it does not seem to scan these emails accounts. So I just want to know does Avast mail scan Hotmail, yahoo, and gmail mail.

If they dont scan their email accounts does any know where i can get a free email scan program that scans these accounts.

thanks

 

[Lisandro]

Since SSL/TLS e-mail is encrypted and decrypted in the client, external virus scanners (including avast!) can't read or scan it.
The solution is to pass e-mail in and out un-encrypted from your client (Outlook Express, Thunderbird, ...) to a proxy program (Stunnel) that does the actual ssl or tls encryption/decryption of the pop3/smtp e-mail and communicates directly with the ISP server on the appropriate ports. Download here: http://www.stunnel.org/download/binaries.html
Take a look here: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=10428.0 to see how to set up secure email with avast!.

If you were using MS Outlook it would be able to do that as there is a plug-in, which effectively has the avast email scanner inside Outlook. I believe the same is true for 'The Bat' email client, but the Internet Mail scanner operates independent (outside) the email program and you need a third party interface as Oldman and Tech mention.

Advanced configuration: please refer to this post http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=8775.msg97026#msg97026

To ATT Yahoo SSL mail see: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=14854.msg238394#msg238394 and Alanrf's comments here: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=38727.msg325051#msg325051

[Northeast]

Thanks Tech, for replying about the thunderbird and the binary thing, and it is really confusing to understand as I think the best way to scan attachments in emails is to download the attachment onto desktop first and then right click and scan with the antivirus program to see if that file has a virus, as if there is a virus I would delete it before opening it.

i remember AVG used to have a free email scanner only for free but it's not available anymore. And would never use MS outlook or express as I feel those accounts arent very safe, as I though most antivirus software would scan incoming emails.

[Lisandro]

avast 5 will solve all these problems and will scan SSL (protected) connections.

[mevcit]

avast 5 will solve all these problems and will scan SSL (protected) connections.

i wonder how it will scan. because the connections are still encrypted. could you enlighten me on this subject?

[DavidR]

It will have to work in the same sort of way as STunnel and act like a third party interface (between the AV and the sending/receipt of email) where avast scans the outbound content before encryption and after decryption on inbound email.

Outbound: Email > intercept scan > encrypt - outbox - send.
Inbound:   email server > intercept > decrypt > scan - inbox.

I have absolutely no Idea how they will go about this but it would generally be similar as to how we achieve the scanning of SSL email in conjunction with STunnel as it acts as the receiving/sending 3rd party.

[mevcit]

Thanks David. It's explanatory enough for me.

[DavidR]

You're welcome, it is just an educated guess as to how they might achieve it.