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Using Norton AntiVirus with Opera

There are two kinds of viruses you need protection against: those that come in e-mails and those that may hide in files you download.

How Norton integrates with Opera depends both on how you use Opera and how the Norton program is set up.

Norton has a feature called "Auto-protect" which means it constantly surveys your computer for new files and checks them for viruses. Any file stored from Opera, whether mail or download, will be checked when Norton is in this mode, including e-mail attachments. Opera does not run attachments automatically when the e-mail is viewed. The attachment is only saved to disk so that Norton can find and scan it.

It is not possible to "integrate" NAV with Opera's e-mail client, but this shouldn't be necessary, since it scans files automatically.

For your security you can also run a Norton virus scan directly from the Opera Download manager window:

  1. Download a file, choose to save it on the disk and select folder if asked.
    - Opera will open a window showing progress information.
  2. Wait for the download to finish
    - Norton should check the file automatically and alert you to any viruses
  3. Just to be sure the file has been checked, you can right-click it in the download progress window and choose "Scan with Norton Antivirus"
    - Norton should pop up and say "No viruses found"

It is possible that you may encounter false positives when browsing with Opera, in the form of alerts from Norton about a virus in your cache. That a virus appears in Opera's cache only means that Opera has downloaded a page or resource containing the virus from a site you have visited, not that the virus has infected your system. For a virus to infect your system, the file containing the virus must be run, and Opera does not run cached files automatically.

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