using email client to read hotmail/yahoo messages

[minacross]

Is it dangerous?
I mean if you read it on the web you use thier AV scanner (Mcaffee for Hotmail and Nav for Yahoo..) but when you deliver it directly to your inbox, you're only counting on the AV that is installed on your pc..
Am I correct? or just missing something? ::)

[rerun2]

I do not believe the AV scanners used by hotmail and yahoo are as effective as their desktop versions. A couple of people have said that by simply compressing the malware it will bypass most of their AV filters. They are probably not as aggressive to avoid FPs. A FP can lead to delayed mail or an item not even being sent to the other party. Also by opening mail in your browser you are succeptible to malware that may exploit your browser to execute or infect (especially if you use IE).

There have also been a few occassions that hotmail did not update their defs regularly and in one case was using Mcafee's scanner that was six versions behind.

By using a secure email client you can also imploy restrictions that will even reduce your risk further. In the case of The Bat! you can choose between reading your mail in plain text or through its html viewer. You can also restrict attachments by file extensions.

Personally I rather trust my updated desktop AV to the ones used by hotmail and yahoo.

Hotmail popper is also a popular freeware program that allows you to read your hotmail in your email client of choice.
http://www.boolean.ca/hotpop/