Opera and Norton AV

[jkrzok]

I've got a question regarding Opera's email and Norton Antivirus and I figure I'll ask it here because we have some good people here. I ask the question in Operaland and it's Nortons fault, vice versa in Nortonland.

Opera stores the emails it receives in one file (.mbs). If Norton finds a virus multiple emails, including non-infected ones, will be deleted or otherwise disappear. This is not a happy event; each email received after that triggers a Norton response I have to click through, even when I try to empty Opera's trash.

I can have Norton ignore .mbs files but I am concerned with my security after that. Will Norton still pick up on the virus if I foolishly click on the attachment? I don't want to sacrifice my security but these are two programs I like (and paid for) and I would like them to get along.

[Roj]

Opera stores the emails it receives in one file (.mbs). If Norton finds a virus multiple emails, including non-infected ones, will be deleted or otherwise disappear. This is not a happy event; each email received after that triggers a Norton response I have to click through, even when I try to empty Opera's trash.

I can have Norton ignore .mbs files but I am concerned with my security after that. Will Norton still pick up on the virus if I foolishly click on the attachment? I don't want to sacrifice my security but these are two programs I like (and paid for) and I would like them to get along.
First of all, I'm assuming you're running Norton 2003 or higher. The files shouldn't be deleted (unless you've told it to do so) but are moved to the Quarantine directory by default. If you kill that file from quarantine, your repeated warnings should stop.

I wouldn't have Norton ignore mbs files. While the real time scan should catch something viral trying to execute, it's a dangerous thing to depend only on that.

[Tokelil]

Hmmm doesn't NV delete emails before the client sees them?

[jkrzok]

Hmmm doesn't NV delete emails before the client sees them?

That's what I thought. It looks to me like Norton isn't catching the bug until Opera writes the email to disk. Norton's warning is that the mbs file itself is infected. And then Norton does what ever it does with that file and I end up losing multiple emails.

It almost makes me wonder if these aren't false reports. It's always the same variant of Netsky, time and time again. Short of installing another scanner is there another way to verify if something is in fact a virus?

I may go back to using Mailwasher Pro (which doesn't actually download email, just previews it) and delete anything with attachments. It's a shame because Opera's spam filter is outstanding.

I may try to filter out attachments with Opera. I may also ask if my ISP can filter out attachments before I ever see them. I tell everyone to not send me attachments. Period. The only attachments I ever get are virii. Perhaps I need some rules to back up my goals.


(Is this a great Yankees game or what?)

[Roj]

Hmmm doesn't NV delete emails before the client sees them?
Not e-mails - just infected attachments.

[Roj]

That's what I thought. It looks to me like Norton isn't catching the bug until Opera writes the email to disk. Norton's warning is that the mbs file itself is infected. And then Norton does what ever it does with that file and I end up losing multiple emails.

It almost makes me wonder if these aren't false reports. It's always the same variant of Netsky, time and time again. Short of installing another scanner is there another way to verify if something is in fact a virus?

I may go back to using Mailwasher Pro (which doesn't actually download email, just previews it) and delete anything with attachments. It's a shame because Opera's spam filter is outstanding.

I may try to filter out attachments with Opera. I may also ask if my ISP can filter out attachments before I ever see them. I tell everyone to not send me attachments. Period. The only attachments I ever get are virii. Perhaps I need some rules to back up my goals.


(Is this a great Yankees game or what?)
There was a point in the not too distant past that I wsa getting flooded with Netsky and Sobig. Symantec Anti-virus would quarantine the attachment from Outlook Express but retain the e-mail that the virus was attached to.

[Tokelil]

Thunderbird works without problems with NV and is good (IMO) email client.

[jkrzok]

Thunderbird works without problems with NV and is good (IMO) email client.

How is the spam control in Thunderbird? I've got Opera trained to where I only see maybe 1% of my total spam with no false positives.

[Tokelil]

I haven't any experience with other spam control software so I dont know how good it is compared to Opera. It works quite well for me at the moment. (One annoing thing though is that the spam filter is set on account basis, so you need to train it for all you accounts)