I don't use Sympatico, but here is how to set up avast! secure email scanning wih XP, assuming you use port 995 for secure pop3 and port 25 for secure smtp. Let us know is your setup is different, or if you use IMAP.
To set up secure email with avast!, you need to do 3 things:
1) In your email client, use
localhost:11110 for your pop server
localhost:11025 for your smtp server
Do not check "use secure"
2) In avast! email provider add
11110 to the pop3 ports to redirect
11025 to the smtp ports to redirect
3) With a text editor, create Stunnel.conf (or cut/paste/edit below)
Stunnel.conf, the configuration file, looks like this for secure email:
client=yes
# POP3 service, listens on localhost:11110
[xxxxx-pop3s]
accept=localhost:11110
connect=pop.xxxxx.com:995
# SMTP service, listens on localhost:11025
[xxxxx-smtps]
protocol=smtp
accept=localhost:11025
connect=smtp.xxxxx.com:25
Replace the xxxxx connect lines with the names and ports of your ISP secure pop3 and smtp servers.
You need to download and install OpenSSL from
http://www.openssl.org/related/binaries.html and Stunnel from
http://www.stunnel.org/download/binaries.html and install them. Stunnel can either be installed as a windows service or added to your startup group. Put stunnel.conf in the same folder as stunnel.
I am not running W98, but you should be able to follow the instructions in the avast! help file for manual setting of email protection to edit the avast4.ini file to get things directed to Stunnel. Something like poplisten=127.0.0.1:11109 and similar for the email client pop3 server setting, and defaultpopserver=127.0.0.1:11110; smtplisten=127.0.0.1:10024 , similar for email client smtp server setting, defaultsmtp server=127.0.0.1:11025 should work with the same stunnel.conf . Maybe someone who actually runs W98 will chime in.
There are a large number of users of secure email with avast! who can help here in the forum if you have problems/questions. Give it a try!