Best to use Zone Alarm or Avast for email protection?

F

Franklin

I run Win XP Pro. I use Eudora as my email program.

I have got Zone Alarm as a firewall and Avast as an anti-virus
program.

Either Zone Alarm or Avast can be configured to check for email
attachments as they are downloaded. But enabling both makes it
very slow to download emails.

Which of the two is it better to use for checking email attachments?
 
W

Wattsville Blues

Franklin said:
I run Win XP Pro. I use Eudora as my email program.

I have got Zone Alarm as a firewall and Avast as an anti-virus
program.

Either Zone Alarm or Avast can be configured to check for email
attachments as they are downloaded. But enabling both makes it
very slow to download emails.

Which of the two is it better to use for checking email attachments?

Well ZoneAlarm (versions without virus scanning) just block certain file
types from running easily, so you'll want Avast running to actully
verify downloads as safe. The ZA Security Suite with AV Scanning is, in
my experience, far far too heavy on system resources.
 
K

kurt wismer

Franklin said:
I run Win XP Pro. I use Eudora as my email program.

I have got Zone Alarm as a firewall and Avast as an anti-virus
program.

Either Zone Alarm or Avast can be configured to check for email
attachments as they are downloaded. But enabling both makes it
very slow to download emails.

Which of the two is it better to use for checking email attachments?

well hmmm... zone alarm is a firewall and avast is an anti-virus...

what exactly are you hoping to keep out of your email?
 
G

Gerald Vogt

Wattsville said:
Well ZoneAlarm (versions without virus scanning) just block certain file
types from running easily, so you'll want Avast running to actully
verify downloads as safe. The ZA Security Suite with AV Scanning is, in

Avast cannot verify that a download is safe. No virus scanner can do it.
The definition of "safe" is already hard to make.

If you virus scanner detects nothing on a attachment, the attachment
does or does not have a virus. An OK of the virus scanner means: I don't
recognize it. Maybe the updated virus signatures that you download an
hour later do recognize it. Maybe it is a nicely adjusted seldom found
virus of which there are many out there, and it will actually never
detect it. "No virus found" does mean "I cannot find one" not "there is
none".

The same is true for the opposite: if the scanner does detect something
than it means I found something that might be a virus. It does not
necessarily to be one. Although, certainly, for the average user it
generally is.

So use, what ever you feel more comfortable with or whatever uses less
resources. Do generally not open attachments that are reported as virus.
Be extremely careful with attachments that are not reported as virus.
You must always consider that the virus scanner cannot detect it.

So, if you open an attachment just because you think the scanner did not
say anything and think you are safe. You are just wrong. If you open an
EXE, CMD, PIF attachment or similar things, whatever your virus scanner
tells you, it is your own fault in the end. Tell all the people you know
never ever to send you anything executable. If you get something,
through it away and ask the sender you know what it is and why he is
sending it.

A virus scanner does not make you safe. A virus scanner does help you
with some of the decisions you have to make if you for example have to
decide on a e-mail attachment. Still, you have to decide yourself and
you should learn how to make the right decision whatever your virus
scanner tells you or better: tells you not.

Gerald
 
R

Roger Wilco

Franklin said:
I run Win XP Pro. I use Eudora as my email program.

I have got Zone Alarm as a firewall and Avast as an anti-virus
program.

Either Zone Alarm or Avast can be configured to check for email
attachments as they are downloaded. But enabling both makes it
very slow to download emails.

Which of the two is it better to use for checking email attachments?

Why bother checking for attachments when Eudora automatically detaches
them anyway and places them as files in an AV scannable location? Just
scan the attachment folder with Avast! before attempting to execute any
executable attachment files after a suitable quarantine period.
 
M

Martin

Franklin said:
I run Win XP Pro. I use Eudora as my email program.

I have got Zone Alarm as a firewall and Avast as an anti-virus
program.

Either Zone Alarm or Avast can be configured to check for email
attachments as they are downloaded. But enabling both makes it
very slow to download emails.

Which of the two is it better to use for checking email attachments?

ZA simply moves the attachments and changes their extension, so you can't
accidentaly execute the file or open the archive.

Avast scans the mail and attachments for any known virus infection as it
downloads, and if it detects something then it moves the attachment to the
chest and alerts you in the e-mail message.

You decide which you prefer to happen. If you don't want to scan your mail
with an AV (in case it doesn't detect something) then let ZA isolate
attachments so they can't be accidentaly opened..........
 
W

Wattsville Blues

Gerald said:
decide on a e-mail attachment. Still, you have to decide yourself and
you should learn how to make the right decision whatever your virus
scanner tells you or better: tells you not.

Gerald

Bloody hell. I don't think he was looking for a legal definition of "safe".
 
G

Gerald Vogt

Wattsville said:
Bloody hell. I don't think he was looking for a legal definition of
"safe".

May be not. It is just that if someone who knows something about
computers (newbies call them "computer experts") tells a newbie to do
this&that and then he is "safe", newbie thinks generally that he is
really safe. The same way he believes PFW vendors that a PFW makes his
computer really secure. Many people omit the lengthy "but" part and many
newbies do not seem to know that one either.

And I don't consider my post good enough for a legal defintion either. ;-)

Gerald
 
R

Roland Stiner

Which of the two is it better to use for checking email attachments?

I'd rely on the antivirus software to check attachments.

Roland
 

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