Since installing ADSL the internet speed has been very fast. However, after upgrading to McAfee Antivirus 2007 the receive/download speed for emails containing pictures and graphics has been extremely slow. Obviously this has something to do with the scanning of incoming email messages, as when I send email messages containing pictures the messages are transmitted at the usual fast speed. Several of my friends who have McAfee Antivirus also experience the same problem. The computer is running Windows XP and Outlook Express for email. How can I speed up the downloading of emails?

Since the problem involves the slow downloading of emails, you are most likely correct that the problem is caused by the incoming email scanning not working correctly. In particular, when McAfee Antivirus scans the emails for viruses it is causing a slow-down in the receipt of the emails. Unfortunately the root cause of this issue will be very hard to diagnose, but since your friends have experienced similar issues there may be a common cause to the problem, such as a software bug or misconfiguration. Research I conducted on the internet has not provided any particularly useful results as to the cause of the problem. The best suggestion I can provide is to contact McAfee to see whether they can offer any advice. Alternatively, if you are unable to resolve the problem you may be forced to switch virus scanning software. An excellent free antivirus scanner is AVG Free free.grisoft.com), which may be worth considering should you exhaust all other options to fix McAfee.