Hi Donna As far as I can see the vulnerabilities are similar, you might say web based is more susceptible Any emails I download to Thunderbird are checked by Avast which is extremely good at intercepting the odd trojan or malware in an attachment and quarantines them with no intervention from me Avast should also intercept that same trojan if using web mail but as I don't use web based I can't say that for certain I use Gmail primarily which is exceptionally good at filtering spam and rarely gets it wrong, the trojans and malware I have had have been from my old address, Sky, now Yahoo which I keep to accept mail on but don't send from Whatever you use, web mail or download, use a good anti-virus and firewall, updated daily at least, also clear temp internet files and cookies Don't open unsolicited attachments or click on urls in emails unless you know its OK Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK) On 28/03/2014 18:24, Donna wrote: > > If I remember right, I used to "hear talk" about that it was harder > to get your PC messed up if you read your email on line rather than > downloading to your PC email program. Is that true? >