Am I too paranoid?

Hello all, I hope I'm posting in the right place. I use Outlook Express and have got Mcafee security suite 8 -roll on the end of that subscription- which includes McAfee privacy service. This is set to tell me when, among other things, my name is sent across the internet via email or chat.

I've noticed that if I put my name once in an email (as you do) the privacy service warns me during send/receive that my name is being sent twice. I wondered if this meant my email was being sent twice (and if so, who was the 2nd copy going to)?

To test this I tried sending myself an email and seeing if the whole thing actually goes twice (it doesn't, or at least, I only receive one copy of it). I tried again, telling it to block sending my name the first time and allow it the second (the email I received had my name blocked) and then just to be sure I sent another one, allowing the first time and blocking the second (it still came back to me with my name blocked). This didn't confirm or deny my suspicions, so I contacted McAfee customer support.

I now know I would've been better off either contacting Cletus the Slack-Jawed -Yokel or standing next to a good, solid, thick wall and bashing my head against it for 30 mins. Either option would've got me as far forward as the customer support cretin did.

I'm now using Hushmail instead, but I retain my right to dislike webmail, and the reasons for a yahoo account rather than hotmail or gmail persist:
1) Nagging doubts over security with passport, and AdSense issues (as discussed elsewhere on AO)
2) I'm lazy - if I can click one button to open OE, and click one more to send & receive I'll do that rather than the longwinded option
2) Free pop3 access. The fact that I sussed a little trick with yahoo also helps - in order to get the pop3 access for free you have to allow them to bombard your inbox every couple of days with random ads, or ones related only to topics you specify. If you click the "only topics I specify" box and then don't specify any topics you get the pop3 settings and none of the ads :D.

Is there some bizarre combo of OE, Yahoo & McAfee that causes McAfee to erroneously report an email is being sent twice? Am I being needlessly paranoid? Is this further proof (as if I needed any) that McA is just as crap as M$ or |\|0r70n?

I did try to cut this down, esp. as a first post, but I didn't want to waste anyone's time suggesting remedies I've already thought of.

Thanks

Hmmm,

Try this:

Go into your mail client and turn off the "save a copy of sent mail" or whatever it calls that option. Then send yourself an e-mail.

This is a pure guess, and I could be completely wrong, but I suspect that McAfee is monitoring the mail client and is probably counting the locally stored copy as well?

Just a thought:)

Are you sending HTML or RTF email? If so the email is send twice in one go, once in HTML or RTF and once in plaintext.

it is saying that you sent 2 because you are sending 1, and a copy of that email that you sent, is getting sent to your sent folder.

if you flick through the options you should be able to uncheck a box and have the automagically save in sent box option.

then try again and it should only say it's sent 1 now. :)

If not then also the Mcafee program would also be scanning the sent email, and then it would also be scanning the 2nd copy that is put into your sent folder also.
So that could also be another reason why it says 2 and not 1..
And if that is the case, then you might want to take a looksie with the settings in the Mcafee program and see if there is a off switch so to speak..

cheers
acidtone..:)

Hello,

You can use Outlook Express and/or Outlook with Gmail to access it via POP3 with the same 'Two Clicks'.

I would download Ethereal and fire that up to confirm 100% that is is only sending one email.

I echo your sentiments about webmail, except for the third one. Free pop3 access with ads doesn't worry me because if I've got pop3 access then by definition I'm not going to the webpage to retrieve email very much.

Hushmail is good - I have a hushmail account and use it for confidential email knowing that nobody can read my mail easily as it isn't stored on the PC and is encrypted in transit. PGP works well too of course, but Hushmail is easier and anyone can use it.

Regarding your email, I'd recommend switching to Thunderbird from OE - far better client.

Hi guys, thanks for the suggestions, I tried unchecking the "save to sent folder" box and it, unfortunately, made no difference at all. I think I'll give thunderbird a go, since completely de-activating all McAfee modules and exiting the whole thing fails to actually deactivate it. McAfee isn't compatible with any Mozilla software as far as I can tell so if nothing else it'll stop the annoying messages! Cheers

I just don't bother with their privacy service at all. I enabled it once, and all it was, was a nuisance. If you move to blunderbird, make sure you compress folders frequently and back up the mail in your profile, if there's anything important. The profile corrupted on me twice in a yr and I lost email (work email) each time.

Aah, that's a bit of a bummer. There's rarely anything of any real consequence in my inbox at home, but thanks for the heads-up though. There are some funny daily Dilberts in there I wouldn't want to lose... PS: Having just re-read your replies, SirDice cracked it, I just didn't read (or understand) his suggestion properly before. Disabling HTML resolved the issue.