Based on your explanation as to what you did, it sure seems that many people should see this issue - not just alanrf and myself.
Harvey,
I think the important word is
see it.
It looks to me as though the base Mozilla code has adopted a
transmission method that delivers mail to the network faster than some
other products, most notably those of Microsoft.
I suspect that everyone using Mozilla based mailers is being affected by
this issue. However, the Microsoft products are much more widely used than the Mozilla based ones.
Another part of "seeing" it is the interface.
In Outlook Express as soon as you hit send the message window disappears (therefore it must have been sent). There is a little icon on the main OE window showing mail is being transmitted but I doubt that many people are going to time it.
I don't know about all Mozilla mailers but Thunderbird has a progress
bar showing the progress of the message delivery. I do know a number of
Thunderbird users who have turned off the outbound scanning of e-mail
because the change in behaviour of the progress bar caused by Avast
disturbed them. People expect progress bars to move fairly consistently
to 100% and then say "done". When the bar moves rapidly to 100% and
then sits there it generally causes disquiet. (This has disturbed users of Avast on the receiving side of other applications too - notably with NNTP).
Finally I suspect most concern comes when folks are waiting for something
to arrive to them rather than when they are sending and do not expect to
see the final event (the delivery of the message to the person(s)
addressed).
Just my thoughts.
Anyway, you were the one who noticed this issue and raised it and I think your efforts will benefit all of us. Well spotted!
Oh, and didn't I tell you the Avast team would make sure you didn't need
to go back to NAV?
Alan