In this blog, I talk about protecting you online and there is a service that is free and well thought out. The service is Gmail. I know, you probably already have an email application, outlook or outlook express and you probably use an email anti-virus scanner like AVG (Grisoft), Norton or McAfee and those are all great at doing what they do. Here’s another option to give you another barrier of protection. All Gmail email is scanned for virus infections. All attachments to Gmail messages are scanned for viruses too.
I have several email accounts and have my Gmail account forwarded to my local ISP email account (Frontier.net, Qwest.com, etc.) and not only does my ISP have anti-virus software scan it, my computer has an anti-virus scanner and Gmail has scanned it. Sounds like overkill doesn’t it, but it really isn’t. The more protection you have the better.
One thing that I’ve found about protection of this sort whether it be virus, malware, or Trojans is that if one scanner doesn’t pick up a problem, another might identify one that got through.
I send email using my Gmail settings via Outlook and am comfortable that I’m not sending anyone a virus. Not only does my PC anti-virus application check my outgoing email for a virus, but Gmail checks the contents of the message for viruses as well and will warn if it detects one.
One more option available from Google is they offer a “Google Pack” that includes among other things a spyware scanner and Norton Security Scan. You can select the options you want for you own “Google Pack”, that way you only get the functionality that you need. Oh, by the way, it’s free.
As always, Safe Surfing,
Darrell Mishler
