Vlk,
yes Microsoft reversed their policy (for now anyway) during the past week. They will allow free access to continue via OE and Outlook for currently active accounts.
I suspect that this will lead to some confusion in the forums with the issue of old free accounts vs new free accounts.
As a matter of interest does the Avast special consideration for Outlook/OE scan/add clean text for mail read from Hotmail via HTTPDAV?
This MS decision also means that third party HTTPDAV to POP3 converters will continue to work for existing accounts too (the only one I know is sourceforge hotwayd).
Other third party converters of Hotmail to POP3 that are using standard HTTP access (MrPostman, FreePops etc.) are unaffected either way.
Alan