Why does !Avast try to 'send email'?

[anvil]

I notice that my Zonelalarm firewall warns me that !Avast is trying to send email. As I have had a problem with my pc being used as a server to send spam, I am suspicious of such an attempt. Can anyone explain what !Avast is doing, and if it should be allowed? At present I have configured zonealarm to block these attempts.

[lukor]

I notice that my Zonelalarm firewall warns me that !Avast is trying to send email. As I have had a problem with my pc being used as a server to send spam, I am suspicious of such an attempt. Can anyone explain what !Avast is doing, and if it should be allowed? At present I have configured zonealarm to block these attempts.

What exactly does ZoneAlarm show?

[w0mbat]

Hi Anvil,

It's ok.  The part of Avast that sends mail is the Outgoing Mail Scanner.
It's OK for this to be ticked to allow.
It takes the mail from the Email program and then scans it for Virili before sending it on it's way.

Hope that helps

--Steve

[anvil]

I notice that my Zonelalarm firewall warns me that !Avast is trying to send email. As I have had a problem with my pc being used as a server to send spam, I am suspicious of such an attempt. Can anyone explain what !Avast is doing, and if it should be allowed? At present I have configured zonealarm to block these attempts.

What exactly does ZoneAlarm show?

Hi. ZA reports that "!Avast email scanner is attempting to send email." It asks me to allow or deny. Given my problems with being used as a server to send spam (no sign of any virus on pc though) I ticked 'deny'. I even scanned pc with housecall.antivirus incase !avast had been compromised. No virus found.

[anvil]

Hi Anvil,

It's ok.  The part of Avast that sends mail is the Outgoing Mail Scanner.
It's OK for this to be ticked to allow.
It takes the mail from the Email program and then scans it for Virili before sending it on it's way.

Hope that helps

--Steve

Thanks Steve. That's a relief. I had a suspicion that !avast was being used to send spam! My ISP are convinced that my pc was sending spam and that it was caused by a virus. That's why they closed down my account. I can't find any virus, but I do get a lot of spam. I have Mailwasher, and usually blacklist, bounce and delete. I get about 50 per day, sometimes more. Now I am not bouncing, just deleting. BTW Zonealarm does not recognise that !avast is on my pc. It reports that there is no antivirus on my pc and warns me. I also notice that !avast reports (only lately) an incompatibility issue and asks me to disable some feature. I don't go with that. Can't immediately recall what feature of zonealarm it is. Perhaps someone can comment.

[essexboy]

See this topic http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=13258.0