AVG free

Learning AVG has been a little tricky, I think because the tab names don't always explain what happens. For instance there's no straightforward button that says simply "turn off e-mail scans".

I read somewhere that e-mail antivirus scanners can actually damage your e-mails, a problem which can be gotten around by compressing the files often, however, the same article mentioned that anti-virus programs scan for viruses anyway, and therefore don't need to scan the e-mails additionally.

The reason I would like to turn off AVG e-mail scanning is because many of the e-mails which are scanned show an attachment which isn't there. That means, I'm getting e-mails that show an attachment present, when in fact it is AVG which seems to have added this attachment symbol. It means I don't know if there is an attachment with the e-mail until I've opened it. When I turn off the e-mail scanning feature, the AVG icon at the lower right hand of my screen turns a sad-looking gray, giving the appearance that the whole anti-virus is shut down. Also, when I turn off the e-mail scanning feature, I still get a pop-up, but now in clear dead-looking gray color, which says the e-mails are being scanned, while the AVG interface warns that the e-mail scanning feature is not activated.

Does anyone know this program well enough to help me? I would like protection against viruses without getting false information about my e-mails.
Thanks.
abri

 

Bring up the console go to VIEW | COMPONENTS

Click on the email scanner and check the ignore plug-in box.

 

thanks!
I wondered if that might be the right thing to push, but I didn't know what would happen. Do you recommend doing this or have any opinion about it?
abri

 

In my case...I rearely open any email attachments that I wasn't expecting. I'm pretty careful with email attachments so it wouldn't be a problem for me.

 

At least you had the "good sense" to ask.

When I was still on dialup I had the email scanner on and couldn't figure out how to turn it off........the right way. It was taking forever to download and scan everything. Finally remembered it ask me during installation if I wanted to use email scanning. I finally had to just reinstall it and select NO.

Now I know. Thank's jconstan.

Steve

 

Thanks Matacumbie.
Besides the normally scheduled scanning, is there still a virus-scanning function in AVG free going on after I've removed the e-mail scanning function? Like, does it scan other stuff coming in over the internet? Or does it just go look for updates? I'm not quite sure how it works yet or what it's doing.
abri

 

yeah all the real time virus scans will still be running, ie- checks web pages as you open them checks anything you down load etc all you have disabled is the email scans

 

Yup, still does everything else. I just could never get my email scanner to stop and everything work correctly until I reinstalled it.

Steve

 

okay, thanks!
abri

 

I don't know if it was a glitch, or a regular problem, but I've had AVG crash my laptop. I then spent 3 or so hours removing all references to it in my register (Win98SE, of course!). This fixed the problem, but after a while I started getting nervious about my computer, so I reinstalled it, and turned the resident scanner off.

Why? Because as near as I could figure, the original problem was caused by my wireless network coming up after the virus scanner. Had the same problem with my spy scanner too, same solution (turning off the resident function).

Overall I like AVG, but I can testify it installs itself everywhere in the register, and the uninstall doesn't get it all.

 

I love AVG and have used it for quite awhile, but never had any need to use the email scanning feature. However, I am used to the taskbar icon going grey when the virus definitions are out of date. Are you certain that this isn't your problem? When it goes grey, right-click it and select 'Search For Updates'. I'll wager that you're missing a priority update.

 

Hi Mada_Milty,
I checked and the updates are okay, but when I point at the icon, it says E-mail scnner is not fully functional. I'll try Matacumbie's idea of the custom install and see if that works. And before that I'll see what disabling the plugin does, but I think I tried that awhile back.
Thanks for your(s) help(s).
abri

 

abri,

Here is how I did it with the paid version of AVG, I would think it would work the same with the free version.

Screen shot 1 -- open Controm center & double click on "email scanner"
Screen shot 2 -- click click on "properties"
Screen shot 3 -- click on the "servers tab" find the "smtp" server, double click on it
Screen shot 4 -- find the "activate this server" at the bottom and uncheck it.

I had to put screen shot 3 & 4 in the next post, sorry

This seemed to do it for me.

Hope this helps,
BeenThereDoneThat

 

Here is screen shot 3 & 4

 

Sorry about the quality of Screen shot 1, but I was having trouble with the size.

Have a good day,
BeenThereDoneThat

 

Hi Been There...
I love the clarity of your instructions. In the last screen shot, you mention to double click on the SMPT server and uncheck the box at the bottom, but in the screen shot, it shows the POP server. If I double click on SMPT, the box is already unchecked at the bottom, but if I double click on the POP, then it is checked and could be unchecked. Wanted to check if you might have meant this. Thanks.
abri

 

abri,

Sorry about that, I should have paid more attention at the screen shot and moved the highlight bar down to the SMTP. The POP is the incoming, the SMTP is the outgoing. So if it is unchecked then in principal you are not scanning outgoing mail, but you are scanning incoming mail. If you don't want scan either, then both POP & SMTP should be unchecked. I scan incoming, but not outgoing mail.

Hope that this helps,
BeenThereDoneThat

 

Abri,

I just noticed another one of the things you mentioned about a lot of your email showing attachements. That is because if AVG "Certiy" the email then it acctually shows that as an attachement. If you want it scanned but not the "attachement" that shows the certification then leave the servers in the previous screen shots alone and do this.

1. Open the "control center" of AVG & double click on "email scanner
2. Screen Shot 1 -- click on "configure"
3. Screen Shot 2 -- uncheck "certify"

your email will be scanned, but not show the certification, which adds the attachement.

Hope this helps,
BeenThereDoneThat

 

Hi BeenThere,
I looked at the certify and it's unchecked, which happened when I unchecked the box above it to not check e-mails.
The scanning of the e-mails doesn't happen everytime, which is puzzling, at least the popup doesn't show. I will try this idea of reinstalling in custom mode and see if I can get where I want to go that way.
Your information has been helpful.
Thanks!
abri

 

abri,

What I have noticed is that the popup for the email scan only happens if the connection is either slow (dialup) or the computer is really occupied with other things. On my computer with a 20meg connection I never see the popup, unless I have a really large attachement.

Hope you get it worked out,
BeenThereDoneThat

 

<thinks her computer has just been insulted>
I'll try that with resetting the e-mail scanner to scan and unchecking the certify. I'm curious if that's what's causing the false attachments.
abri

 

abri,

That normally should get rid of the "false attachement". AVG blames it on the mail clients, especailly Outlook & Outlook express that "does not handle" the certify in a "standard" manner. Hey, I don't know who is to blame, but I was able to get rid of the "false attachement" that way so it is good.

Keep us posted,
BeenThereDoneThat

 

Hi Tim <fond memories of the subdued thread ... chuckle>
It's not the messing with the attachments which I found a problem, rather that it was adding an attachment symbol to e-mails that had no attachments. I'm checking to see if the certify button might have been the culprit.
abri

 

abri,

Just thought of something else, has nothing to do with the "false attachement", about the popup when it scans email. If you don't want that you can get rid of it by unchecking the 2 options in the email scanner.

1. open control center -- double click on email scanner
2. Click on "properties" and you should see something like this screen shot.
3. Uncheck the 2 outlined in red. You could do this one at a time as I do not remember what each controls, but 1 of them shuts off the popup even though the email will still be scanned.

BeenThereDoneThat

 

Thanks!
I'll try it.

 

1. Open the "control center" of AVG & double click on "email scanner
2. Screen Shot 1 -- click on "configure"
3. Screen Shot 2 -- uncheck "certify"

4. Make sure you check the " Use the personal test configuration" setting from screen shot #1

I think this will use your settings.

From BeenThere's post #18

 

oh, I did that by accident already. I didn't notice the shared one in the first sceen shot and it was already set for personal. I don't know what happened when I told it to disable plugins ... there's no enable button to counteract it.
I think I can control the attachments problem, I'm just wondering though, after reading a lot about it, if I want it to scan my emails at all. That's something I still have to decide.
abri

 

E-mails with attachments are usually from a known source. I never open mail from some one I dont know and you probably don't either.

 

abri,

I am a little "paranoid" but guess I don't trust my ISP to check my emails for virus enough not to scan. I figure 2 scans or at least 1 for sure on my side is better than none, if they don't do it on their end.

Have a good day,
BeenThereDoneThat