Author Topic: About SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner  (Read 12834 times)

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Offline rdsu

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About SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner
« on: September 02, 2004, 03:18:46 AM »
Hi,

Why avast! have to change the server and user in the E-mail Client to scan the mail? What is the advantage of this method, when the others AV's doesn't use it...

Today I installed the avast! Home Edition to a friend, and the Mail Wizard didn't work with Thunderbird. I had to change it manualy...

One suggestion: It's possible in an email subject, when it have a virus, have the subject changed like this: [virus %VirusName%]
It will be nice to see the name of the virus in the subject...

Regards
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Offline Lisandro

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Re:About SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner
« Reply #1 on: September 02, 2004, 04:12:31 AM »
Hi,

Why avast! have to change the server and user in the E-mail Client to scan the mail? What is the advantage of this method, when the others AV's doesn't use it...

Today I installed the avast! Home Edition to a friend, and the Mail Wizard didn't work with Thunderbird. I had to change it manualy...

Thunderbind does not word with MPW... at least is what could I read in these forums. Hope I'm wrong...

The changed servers are necessary to scan the email through the local computer (127.0.0.1). I heard that, in the future, another method of detection the download of emails (probably monitoring the smtp/pop3 ports of your computer) could (or will) be used  ;)

One suggestion: It's possible in an email subject, when it have a virus, have the subject changed like this: [virus %VirusName%]
It will be nice to see the name of the virus in the subject... Regards

In fact, you will have the line avast [Infected] into the subject line.
Maybe they can (or want) to tweak to the one you suggested  ;)

P.S.: are you 'translating' Brazilian version to Portugal one?
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techie101

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Re:About SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner
« Reply #2 on: September 02, 2004, 05:17:09 AM »
V...C,

Technical is correct.  Although the MPW works with Thunderbird sometimes, it is better to configure it manually as I do with Pegasus and a few others.

The MPW was designed to work with the more common mail clients such as MS Exchange, Eudora, and Outlook Express.

Directing email to the local computer (127.0.0.1) is the easiest to do and many other mail programs use this method for redirects such as MailDirect which becomes the "local computer" bypassing your ISP server and sending the email directly to the recipient.

However, your comments are good ones.  Maybe we will see them in Avast 4.5.

Nice of you to join the forum.

Techie101

Offline Vlk

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Re:About SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner
« Reply #3 on: September 02, 2004, 10:23:15 AM »
There's a nonzero chance that the Mail Protection Wizard will become obsolete in one of the upcoming builds (that is, no mail client reconfiguration will be necessary to scan mail). At least under Windows 2000 and higher.


Cheers
Vlk
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Offline rdsu

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Re:About SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner
« Reply #4 on: September 02, 2004, 01:31:40 PM »
Hi,

Why avast! have to change the server and user in the E-mail Client to scan the mail? What is the advantage of this method, when the others AV's doesn't use it...

Today I installed the avast! Home Edition to a friend, and the Mail Wizard didn't work with Thunderbird. I had to change it manualy...

Thunderbind does not word with MPW... at least is what could I read in these forums. Hope I'm wrong...

When I tried the avast! for the first time, it works with Thunderbird, but like Techie101 said, maybe work sometimes...

The changed servers are necessary to scan the email through the local computer (127.0.0.1). I heard that, in the future, another method of detection the download of emails (probably monitoring the smtp/pop3 ports of your computer) could (or will) be used  ;)

I hope so... It's very annoying to have this method when the majors users only want to install the AV without any extra config...

One suggestion: It's possible in an email subject, when it have a virus, have the subject changed like this: [virus %VirusName%]
It will be nice to see the name of the virus in the subject... Regards

In fact, you will have the line avast [Infected] into the subject line.
Maybe they can (or want) to tweak to the one you suggested  ;)

Will be very nice! Or if we have an option to choose what we want to show...

P.S.: are you 'translating' Brazilian version to Portugal one?

Nope, I'm not translating the avast!... Maybe in the future ;)
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Offline rdsu

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Re:About SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner
« Reply #5 on: September 02, 2004, 01:33:42 PM »
V...C,

Nice of you to join the forum.

Techie101

Thanks ;)
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Offline rdsu

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Re:About SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner
« Reply #6 on: September 02, 2004, 01:34:32 PM »
There's a nonzero chance that the Mail Protection Wizard will become obsolete in one of the upcoming builds (that is, no mail client reconfiguration will be necessary to scan mail). At least under Windows 2000 and higher.


Cheers
Vlk

I hope so...  ;D

And about the suggestion, what you think?
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Offline rdsu

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Re:About SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner
« Reply #7 on: September 14, 2004, 09:15:04 PM »
The extensions that the "Internet Mail" will scan will be the same of the "Standard Shied"?

Vlk: What you think about the suggestion that I make in the first post of this thread?
« Last Edit: September 14, 2004, 09:15:40 PM by VaMPiRiC_CRoW »
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Offline rdsu

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Re:About SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner
« Reply #8 on: September 15, 2004, 10:20:13 PM »
 ???
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Offline rdsu

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Re:About SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner
« Reply #9 on: September 17, 2004, 11:51:50 AM »
The extensions that the "Internet Mail" will scan will be the same of the "Standard Shied"?

Can someone clarify this?
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Offline rdsu

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Re:About SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner
« Reply #10 on: September 17, 2004, 03:18:57 PM »
Another question:

I set the avast! to only watch my incoming email, and he still watching the ports of SMTP and IMAP, why?

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Offline vojtech

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Re:About SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner
« Reply #11 on: September 17, 2004, 04:08:43 PM »
If you disable scanning SMTP in 'Internet Mail provider' but your outgoing mail is redirected to 127.0.0.1 in your mail accounts, it would stop working if avast stopped listening on port 25.

If you want to disable listening, you have to edit file avast4.ini. Insert these lines under [MailScanner]:
StartSmtp=0
StartImap=0

Offline rdsu

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Re:About SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner
« Reply #12 on: September 17, 2004, 04:30:08 PM »
If you disable scanning SMTP in 'Internet Mail provider' but your outgoing mail is redirected to 127.0.0.1 in your mail accounts, it would stop working if avast stopped listening on port 25.

If you want to disable listening, you have to edit file avast4.ini. Insert these lines under [MailScanner]:
StartSmtp=0
StartImap=0


My outgoing mail doesn't be redirected to 127.0.0.1

If we disable the SMTP and IMAP in the options, this should be automatically disabled, without edit the avast4.ini... :(
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Offline rdsu

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Re:About SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner
« Reply #13 on: November 17, 2004, 03:26:47 PM »
If you disable scanning SMTP in 'Internet Mail provider' but your outgoing mail is redirected to 127.0.0.1 in your mail accounts, it would stop working if avast stopped listening on port 25.

If you want to disable listening, you have to edit file avast4.ini. Insert these lines under [MailScanner]:
StartSmtp=0
StartImap=0


My outgoing mail doesn't be redirected to 127.0.0.1

If we disable the SMTP and IMAP in the options, this should be automatically disabled, without edit the avast4.ini... :(

Can this be changed automatically in the next version?

Thanks
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Offline Lisandro

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Re:About SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner
« Reply #14 on: November 17, 2004, 03:32:30 PM »
If you want to disable listening, you have to edit file avast4.ini. Insert these lines under [MailScanner]:
StartSmtp=0
StartImap=0

Even doing this some users - including me - are experiencing trouble while sending mail  :'( In my case, only when smtp authentication is needed  :-\
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