Is it OK to turn off email scanning in my anti-malware program if it causes a problem?

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Scanning email downloads in real-time can interfere with a smooth download. Sometimes you need to adjust your settings.
Question:

Dear Leo, I have AVG internet Security 2012 program installed on my PC.
While one of its components (E-mail Protection) scans my incoming emails for
virus detection, it often causes interruptions with broken internet line
connection. As a result of which, the downloading of my email messages was
disrupted. Is it advisable to disable this particular component so as to give
the email downloading process a smooth run? I’m using Windows 7 and Microsoft
Office Outlook 2010.

In this excerpt from
Answercast #32, I look at the problem of downloading emails through a real
time virus scan and safety steps to take should you turn that function
off.

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Turn off email protection

The short answer is yes.

It’s actually something that I quickly recommend when people run into problems downloading their email.

Real-time email scanning

It is an unfortunate fact of the way most anti-virus programs work. When they scan email in real time, it can interfere with the downloading (or other workings) of the email program that you happen to use.

Now, in some cases, it works just fine and that’s great. It gives you a little bit of added protection through the combination of anti-virus and email program that you happen to be using on that particular system.

  • If it’s not causing a problem, it’s great.

But if it is (as you are experiencing) causing a problem, then it is something that I almost always recommend people turn off.

Schedule regular scans daily

What I recommend you do, instead, is:

  • Make sure your anti-malware software is performing regular scans,

  • On some kind of a schedule – at least daily.

Next from Answercast 32 – If too many bad password attempts cause account locks, how do hackers hack in?

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1 thought on “Is it OK to turn off email scanning in my anti-malware program if it causes a problem?”

  1. Thanks Leo for sharing the article on email scanning issues in anti-malware program. I agree with you that turning off the scanning option is an immediate solution but the application proider must issue patches and softwrae update to solve this problem.

    Reply

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