Is Avast 5 really safe?

[Pondus]

I was doing my typical routines from a new OS install by installing all the key software I use regularly and decided the old version of WinRAR was out dated and browsed the internet for the latest copy.  The download from WinRAR's website kept timing out so I did a search with my bit torrent client, found a copy and began the download thinking it could be infected but I'll just scan it when it's finished.  Besides, there were no comments attached to the torrent indicating it was infected and there were a lot of seeders.

(haven't attempted downloading WinRAR again yet).

Have you tried here http://filehippo.com/download_winrar/

www.filehippo.com

[pingram3541]

Sorry meant to say Pondus instead of Logos...

email is sent, funny thing is when I tried to send the "original" infected email to virus@avast.com, it sent the email without warning but while uploading to my mail server's "sent item" folder, Avast found the threat and removed the attachment.  Checking my "sent items" folder on my mail server shows the message without attachment.

So now the question is not only why didn't the Avast email scanner catch the infection when I first received the email or even when I sent it to virus@avast.com???  But why DID it catch it when sending to my Apache mail server?