Windows Live Mail, Gmail & Avast

[jammyf]

Hi, does anyone know how to get Avast to scan incoming Gmails received into WLM? All my other accounts are scanned, just not Gmail (IMAP)

Any suggestions appreciated

Cheers

[LorenzoC]

My guess is all the encrypted connections (like GMAIL/POP3 using SSL) aren't scanned.

I say this because I saw the firewall asking me for the "mail provider" connecting to the mail servers ONLY for the un-encrypted connections, so I guess the encrypted ones aren't filtered by it.

[alanrf]

LorenzoC is quite correct. 

avast (in its current situation) can only scan those emails that are delivered via unsecured connections typically via POP port 110 and SMTP port 25.

The client to avast is totally irrelevant - avast scans the actions of mail clients not the clients themselves. 

So let us not worry about the WLM client but about how to scan.

GMail insists that emails delivered to/from your mail client to the GMail servers are delivered on secure connections.  While many will think this is for the benefit of the user ... to be honest it is really more to do with the benefit of the email server. 

Let's move beyond that too. 

Secure email connections cannot be scanned by anyone or any antivirus product.  In this it is rather like the connections your browser uses for connections to your bank account ... and you surely do not want anyone to be able to scan those.  Typically that would mean that these email connections cannot be virus scanned. 

But there is a way ....

The secure connections to/from the secure email servers can be handled by a third party program.  In this case the secure connections are managed inside your computer in a way that allows the email messages to/from your email client to be received/sent securely and passed (also securely - totally inside your system) between the secure connection and your email client (in this case WLM) and scanned by avast.

This means that you need to install a third party program called STunnel.  It also requires you to expend some effort to set up the necessary connections to allow your secure mail to be scanned.  There is information available in this forum to assist you with this and we are also here to help. 

Let's be clear too that GMail advises you that all of the attachments in GMail are scanned by an antivirus product (I fully understand that this assurance is not acceptable to many GMail users).

Final extra piece of information  ... the avast team advise that in an upcoming release of avast (avast 5.0) avast will take over the functions I have covered above performed by the third party product STunnel.  So, if you are able to be patient for several months more we will see this support directly from avast.

For some guidance with setting up STunnel to help scan Gmail with avast now please see
this post and perhaps  this post too.     

[jammyf]

Great, thanks very much alanrf! Extremely helpful reply, good to hear avast will take care of this shortly.

Cheers 

[alanrf]

I hope I did not raise expectations too much ... avast 5.0 is likely within this year (I have no special insight .. I am just a user too) but we can keep them aware that we are waiting.

If your patience wears thin we can help with STunnel. 

[LorenzoC]

IMHO, speaking of desktop, the mail filtering is not critical and could even be missing from an antivirus.
The critical function is the ability of detecting the threat upon access/execution and that is done by the "standard shield" scanner. Even the regular scanner is somehow less useful since it detects a virus once it has already infected the system and/or files (making changes that many times can't be repaired). Then, If I had to chose I would invest most of the crew time on the "standard shield". All other "services" are pretty much secondary "nice to have" features.

[alanrf]

There is an extent to which I agree with LorenzoC ... but only to an extent.

I agree that the priority for any antivirus should be access/execution (as done by the Standard Shield in avast) but ...

My humble opinion (as good as anyone's) believes it is best to keep nasty things out of the email store of whatever email client you use.  That way there is far less chance of the antivirus causing any issue with finding problems in your email store and quarantining in part or in whole your email store (should it understand - or even misunderstand - the structure of that email store).  The avast team do an excellent job of both and have done for a long time so concerns "investment of crew time" is not a concern I would worry about.

It would seem odd to me to not take advantage of a tool that is offered to assist in protecting your system ... especially when it is free.  For those that do want a mail scanner ... let them turn it off ... if will not prevent the other scanners from then messing with an infected mail store unless they take special steps to prevent it.

If you believe avast should not offer this feature when other products do ... then maybe the team might agree ... but I doubt it.