email scanning

[alanrf]

ardvark,

this is maybe what Vladimyr was referring to when he referred to the more free format of the avast forums after your sojourn with AVG.

[ardvark]

Snippy is subjective ... I will leave it at your subjective comment.

Your tone was quite clear.

I have explained further while you were posting. I have also said I will find time to report back on what AVG's information really means.  Because AVG says it ...it must be true?  I have never allowed avast to get away with that ... time for me to revisit AVG.

Ok....I understand your point. I misunderstood. Nor should Avast carry any false information or illusions.

Best Regards...

[ardvark]

ardvark,

this is maybe what Vladimyr was referring to when he referred to the more free format of the avast forums after your sojourn with AVG.

I don't recall making the forums stiff or an unpleasant place to be in but if I did, I certainly apologize, to Vladimyr or anyone else.

My intention after learning AVG 7.5 was going to go the way of the dodo was to see if Avast would be a possible alternative after the disasters related to 4.7. I don't hold or give any loyalties to any corporation or business, I use what works for me. However, I thought I would hang around the forums for a bit and lend a hand. If my presence is undesired because I jumped ship or for the reason you stated, then that's ok, I don't need to be here. Not a problem and no offense taken. My main focus was/is to help people with computers in ways that I can.

Please excuse me if I misinterpreted your tone as well.

Best regards...

[Vladimyr]

sorry but I think that you are missing some of the finer details of antivirus email scanning here too.

I know I am.

No antivirus can know (unless they have written the code to understand the configuration file of every email client in existence - for which there are no standards) the download instructions of a user to the mail client - most especially "retain email on the server" (a minority but a sizeable one) and its effects on the information passing between the client and the server.

Good point. I thought I knew how AVG did it but now I don't.

which only transfers the incoming message to OE, TB, etc, once it has been received and scanned.

is a good description of how all antivirus email scanning works (including avast's).

I've only ever used avast! with IMAP accounts. I thought it scanned the content mid-stream.

Later edit: and to add insult to injury ... why is it still that the POP/SMTP accounts account for the favorite mechanism to transfer files between users despite P2P and websites devoted to the service?

Especially when so many SMTP/POP hosts limit the max size of messages and the inherent inefficiency adds bulk KBs to your 3.5MB attachment to the point where it won't "fit" through a 5MB "hole"!

cheers 

[alanrf]

ardvark

I don't recall making the forums stiff or an unpleasant place to be in

You did not in the least.

Please excuse if I misinterpreted your tone as well.

I doubt that you did.  My tone is, to say the least, not to the taste of all. 

I notice that friendly conversational tone seems to lead to the need for frequent clarification.  Yes, I do adopt a more formal tone - because I try to be as precise as I can (I have been accused of writing here like a legal document).
I try to remember also that not all our participants in this forum have English as a first language and should be expected to understand more casual English (in its increasing diversity - I sometimes have trouble understanding everyday English from the land of my birth).   

[Vladimyr]

I have explained further while you were posting. I have also said I will find time to report back on what AVG's information really means.  Because AVG says it ...it must be true?  I have never allowed avast to get away with that ... time for me to revisit AVG. 

alanrf,
From memory, in OE at least, AVG 7.5 shows a sequential number for each unretrieved message and indicates a percentage , e.g #1, 45%
I don't think it displays the total of unread messages on the server (though OE itself does).

[alanrf]

If I understand the information then this is a fairly simple trick that I mentioned earlier.

You will also know that the client is simply saying to the server RETR 4 ... and then when that has finished RETR 5.  Since we both know how POP works then we both know that there is no way for the antivirus program (or the server) to predict what the mail client will ask for.  I do agree that (with unnecessary effort) avast could retain the LIST and know that message 4 is 5Mb long.

So from that it is easy to expend extra cycles (sorry to digress - but look at some of the complaints to do that when a % was included in the avast antivirus scans in 4.8 ) to tell you what percentage of message n has been downloaded. Then to do the same for message n+1 etc.  If my guess is correct the antivirus does not tell you how many more messages will be downloaded (even though your mail client may well do so - because it knows your instructions) or how long those messages will take.

If you use an old fashioned mail client like Outlook Express (MS has dumped it in favor of Windows Live Mail) that works   one message at a time within one account at a time then this probably looks ok.  What about when you use an email client (like Thunderbird) that processes multiple accounts simultaneously and you may well have a dozen accounts (or more in my case) downloading emails all at the same time - ie your system (and avast) is managing the download of 12 messages all at the same time?

That's why I think this is a job best left to the primary application - the email client.         

[Chunker]

To clarify my position, I use both Netscape 7 and Outlook Express as my preferred email clients.  Both act in the same manner while incoming email is being downloaded and scanned.  As for "what information would I like to see that would help me?"  A simple progress notification that shows the percentage of the download file.  Then when I see it hanging on 1 or 2 percent for a long period of time, I would be tipped off that it was a large download.  I might choose to abort and get it later, or go to my web mail and delete the large email.  I really miss that feature that I had with AVG and Norton.  If they could do and did it, my question is "Why can't Avast?"  I've only used Avast for a short period of time and find it to be a great program.  I think the main endeavor is to make Avast the best AV on the market and my suggestion would be an addition to this end. 

[Lisandro]

my question is "Why can't Avast?"

I think they have consider to add this feature on avast 5, but, maybe, I'm wrong.