just purchased zone alarm and discovered that it doesn't scan incoming
email except microsoft. I use mozilla thunderbird for email.
Others have already pointed out that with a email app such as t-bird
you don't need email scanning, but I'll add my 2 cents.
T-bird will not allow the user to Run email attackments. It won't
relinquish control to the system. So the attackment is safely and
harmlessly filed in some T-bird folder. Users should simply delete all
unsolicited attackments.
A user can, of course, choose to Save the possibly malicious file
(stripped of email encoding) elsewhere on the drive. Most realtime
antivirus monitors will intervene at that point. At least they will
intervene at the point where the user attempts to Run the file.
Safe hex dictates that you wait a few days before scanning
to give vendors a chance to react to new and "unknown" malware.
So if a user is expecting a file attachment, it should be left to
incubate a few days before Saving the file, updating your av,
and then scanning the file on demand. This is the preferred
method. It is also a good idea to Open alleged data files in a
appropriate application. For example, Open alleged picture
image files in a picture image fle viewer. Then if the file isn't
actually data, the application will simply produce a error message
and you can delete the file.
Art
http://home.epix.net/~artnpeg