AVG8.0 Free and Thunderbird

[Guerri Stevens]

I installed the free version of AVG8.0 the other day in haste thinking that 7.5 was no longer good. Aside from not liking the new interface and not liking the fact that it seems to run when it feels like it (I may have fixed that), I think it is not scanning my Email messages, retrieved with Thunderbird. I base this on its statistics that 0 messages have been scanned, and I have collected mail several times since installing it.

The older versions of AVG automatically set themselves up to scan Email. Do I have to do that manually in version 8?

Another odd thing, possibly unrelated to AVG, is that tonight I got a message that exceeded the size limit I set in Tbird. I clicked on the thing that tells it to download the rest. The message has totally disappeared now. I can't find it anywhere. At first I thought maybe AVG had grabbed it, but now I think not.

[davidh]

Maybe this will help?
AVG 8.0 Free Edition FAQ » E-mail Scanner
http://free.avg.com/ww.faq.num-1240#faq_1240

I use Thunderbird to access POP3 and POP3 SSL (e.g. gmail) accts. and AVG8 seems to work ok scanning incoming email.

David H

[Peter Creasey]

I installed the free version of AVG8.0 the other day in haste thinking that 7.5 was no longer good.

Guerri, The most recent announcement from Grisoft states that V 7.5 will be obsolete and unsupported effective 8/31/08...sooner than what some of the prior notices indicated.

[Guerri Stevens]

Guerri, The most recent announcement from Grisoft states that V 7.5 will be obsolete and unsupported effective 8/31/08...sooner than what some of the prior notices indicated.Thanks. This means I was only a tiny bit too hasty!

[Guerri Stevens]

I use Thunderbird to access POP3 and POP3 SSL (e.g. gmail) accts. and AVG8 seems to work ok scanning incoming email.I looked at the FAQ and it is still not clear to me what I should do. There are no plugins installed, and my assumption is that none are needed. From my reading, it appears that item 1286 applies to me: this explains how to create servers for scanning Emails. But it doesn't make enough sense for me to do whatever I have to do. I think it is saying that changes must be made to settings in both AVG *and* Thunderbird.

In AVG, I can find the AutoPOP3 spot and I can see that changes can be made, but: the instructions imply that I am to choose Fixed host (it is currently set to Automatic), with the local port 10110. My incoming port in Tbird is 995. The instructions seem to be telling me to first choose Fixed Host, then put in the server name. Tbird has pop.gmail.com. AVG implies that I should enter pop.gmail.com:995 (i.e. appending the port to the server name). Then I am to enter 5100 as the local port? And SSL as the connection??

I am not having AVG scan outgoing mail, so I am skipping the SMTP part.

The next section seems to be telling me to change the Thunderbird settings. I quote here part of the sentence: "... configure your e-mail client so that it connects to the instead of the actual e-mail server..." and yes, that's what it says. I say "the" what? Based on what follows, I'd be changing Tbird's incoming information from port 995 to port 5100 . I see nowhere in Tbird for the IP address AVG wants (127.0.0.1).

So all in all, it seems to me that AVG is going to be in the middle of the process. It goes to the original incoming port and gathers messages, passing them along to Tbird via port 5100. Or something like that.

I guess I could try changing things based on my understanding and see what happens, but I'd be happier if I knew exactly what to do. In short, I am unfit for life in this era, and the idea of going out back into the woods, building a log cabin with no electricity or plumbing and living there is starting to look appealing. Now if I had an axe ...

[davidh]

I'll have to wait and see what happens again when mail comes in to some of my accounts.

According to what the FAQ says and what I see in my T-bird settings, my email scanning should NOT work. So maybe it's NOT working. According to what I see in my AVG email scanner settings and what I see in my T-bird settings, it probably should NOT be working.

Since scripting is disabled by default in T-bird you are probably not in much danger even if your email scanning is not working.

David H.

[davidh]

I think I must have remembered the email scanner working with AVG 7.5 or else working on another computer with AVG 8.0 ?

I tried re-installing AVG 8 and nothing seemed to change in my T-bird settings. So now I assume that one must change the settings manually.

I'm not sure I'm going to use the email scanner. I may disable it and tell the AVG UI to ignore the fact it's disabled.

I assume it's a proxy server and that the server might be a resident service all the time even when not being used (maybe I'll check the task manager?).

DH

[davidh]

Disabling the email scanner does NOT seem to change the number of AVG processes appearing in the task manager process list.

So I think I just turned it back on even tho' it's not doing anything apparently until I configure T-bird (if ever).

DH

[Guerri Stevens]

Disabling the email scanner does NOT seem to change the number of AVG processes appearing in the task manager process list.

So I think I just turned it back on even tho' it's not doing anything apparently until I configure T-bird (if ever).Sorry for the late reply, but I was travelling and then faced with the usual catching up.

The reason I assumed that AVG8 is not scanning my Email is that I don't see the information on the screen as Email is being collected. Plus I never changed the setting that adds the certification text, so that text should be appearing.

I am not very happy with AVG 8 altogether. From time to time the disk light starts flickering and continues for a little while - I suspect this is AVG doing something in the background. In addition, back when I installed it, at some point it tried to do an update (I guess) and I didn't have my internet connection turned on. As a result, no matter what I do, it tells me the connection failed and I should try to access the web site. I'm not sure why they say that, because of course I can access the web site, but then what? I tried running an update, and there was nothing to be updated, which made no sense - surely there are frequent updates to the database being made available. Under the earlier version, I would get warnings that an update was needed then at my convenience I would log on and do the update. Apparently that is no longer how it works.

In short, something is clearly wrong, and I have no idea how to fix it. Do they have a support forum of some kind? I guess I should check on that. It is possible that it's time for me to move on to something else (sigh).

[Peter Creasey]

Do they have a support forum of some kind?

Guerri, It sounds like an uninstall and reinstall might be in order. AVG Free Forum (http://freeforum.avg.com/)

[ndebord]

Sorry for the late reply, but I was travelling and then faced with the usual catching up.

The reason I assumed that AVG8 is not scanning my Email is that I don't see the information on the screen as Email is being collected. Plus I never changed the setting that adds the certification text, so that text should be appearing.

I am not very happy with AVG 8 altogether. From time to time the disk light starts flickering and continues for a little while - I suspect this is AVG doing something in the background. In addition, back when I installed it, at some point it tried to do an update (I guess) and I didn't have my internet connection turned on. As a result, no matter what I do, it tells me the connection failed and I should try to access the web site. I'm not sure why they say that, because of course I can access the web site, but then what? I tried running an update, and there was nothing to be updated, which made no sense - surely there are frequent updates to the database being made available. Under the earlier version, I would get warnings that an update was needed then at my convenience I would log on and do the update. Apparently that is no longer how it works.

In short, something is clearly wrong, and I have no idea how to fix it. Do they have a support forum of some kind? I guess I should check on that. It is possible that it's time for me to move on to something else (sigh).

Guerri,

I used AVG 7.xxx since I found out about it. I initially installed AVG8 and then the latest bug fix. I have religiously hunted down and uninstalled and cleansed my registry of all traces of AVG8. I moved on to AntiVir (even with its nag screen and slow update server). No problems at all. I am also using Panda for Rootkit and Malwarebyte for, ah, malware (in place of Spybot's S&D which by all accounts has not kept up with its competition).

[Dan in Saint Louis]

The reason I assumed that AVG8 is not scanning my Email is that I don't see the information on the screen as Email is being collected. Plus I never changed the setting that adds the certification text, so that text should be appearing.I can't tell from their Web site whether Free AVG handles email differently from the Pro version. I believe that some of the free programs do not scan email attachments when they are downloaded, but only if you attempt to open them -- just as if opening any other file. I should think that would be protection enough.

I read of many problems with AVG8, and it also apparently conflicted with my Acronis backup, so have switched to Avira. It has been working fine.