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Why does Thunderbird have issues with many antivirus programs?

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  • Igcine ukuphendulwa ngu Zenos

dchall
dchall
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Around Jan 18-20, 2015 I started having problems sending email. The first fix I found was to disable the mail shield of Avast. I disabled it permanently and that worked for the evening. The next day the same problem started again. I uninstalled Avast and reinstalled without the mail shield and other irrelevant portions to my needs. The same issues are still plaguing Thunderbird. After reading several articles I have learned that many antivirus programs create the same problems with Thunderbird. I do not buy into all the people who are claiming the problem is Avast when many other antivirus programs have the same conflict with Thunderbird.

My scenario started only after I used an HTML "mailto" link on a webpage.

Does anyone know of an antivirus that works with Thunderbird without all the issues?

Around Jan 18-20, 2015 I started having problems sending email. The first fix I found was to disable the mail shield of Avast. I disabled it permanently and that worked for the evening. The next day the same problem started again. I uninstalled Avast and reinstalled without the mail shield and other irrelevant portions to my needs. The same issues are still plaguing Thunderbird. After reading several articles I have learned that many antivirus programs create the same problems with Thunderbird. I do not buy into all the people who are claiming the problem is Avast when many other antivirus programs have the same conflict with Thunderbird. My scenario started only after I used an HTML "mailto" link on a webpage. Does anyone know of an antivirus that works with Thunderbird without all the issues?

All Replies (1)

Zenos
Zenos
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Have you enabled the option to allow antivirus programs access to your messages?

I think that a large part of the problem is that Thunderbird stores messages sequentially in a single "mbox" file and if an AV program sees something it doesn't like, it quarantines the file, meaning your whole folder (usually Inbox) goes AWOL. The setting I mention above allows each message to be scanned in isolation (and quarantined if appropriate) before it can be added to the file that represents a mail folder.

By and large, virii inside email messages are unable to do any harm. If you try to open or run an infected attachment, it should be picked up by your AV's runtime protection.