Viruses <NAC>

["Peter Webb" <webb.p@domain.elided>]

A sure fire way to avoid an email virus is to use web-based email.   This
carries other conveniences like being able to get to you email from
anywhere, including wireless devices.   Another plus is being able to check
email at work since most firewalls are configured to block port 110 POP3 and
port 25 SMTP.

Most ISP's provide a web-based facility to email as well as POP based.   I'm
in the habit of screening my POP mail in a browser through the ISP website
and downloaded to Outlook from there.   I can also see how large the email
is from the list.   This is helpful for malicious attachments.   Any digest
looking message that is over, say 3k, is suspect and deleted right away.

There are free browser based email services available.   The most popular
being Yahoo and Hotmail.   These services have some form or virus scanning
built in.  I'm not sure how good it is but they claim to scan attachments
before they are opened.   Attachments are downloaded from the browser like
any other download once verified as clean.  These services do have space
limitations so if you get a lot of mail this might not work.   They start
rejecting email when the mailbox becomes full.   Hotmail allows 2mb storage,
Yahoo allows 6mb.

These are a few options to avoid this virus thing.   FWIW, I have never
owned or installed a virus protection program.  I use the above measures and
some due care.  I have never been infected.   My biggest problem is spyware
installed from free "utilities" such as weather programs and mp3 players.
This software installs on your system and sends personal information stored
on your computer such as cookies and browsing habits to commercial email
sites so the spam can be more user specifically annoying instead of
generally annoying.   There is a great program called AdAware from Lavasoft
designed to find and delete spyware installed by websites and utility
programs.   You might be surprised how much you have on your system.

Hope this helps.

-Peter
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