Avast forum: Avast emails me my password!

Well, email is a lot more secure since SSL (https) started to be widely used, this encrypts the traffic so attempted "man in the middle attackers" just get a load of unreadable junk when he tries to intercept.

I'm a member of that forum myself, and you are not the first person to point out the potential problem with this, the topic has been gone over a couple of times over there (on Avast! forum) in the past.

So, in short, is email safer than it used to be? Yes, by far. But is sending passwords via email still an unneeded risk? Yes to that also. But again, much safer than it was. Good on you for even being aware enough to notice though, most people do not even think twice about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_privacy covers another issue that is amazing to some.

"After 180 days in the U.S., email messages lose their status as a protected communication under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and become just another database record.[7] This means that a subpoena instead of a warrant is all that is needed for a government agency to force email providers such as Google's Gmail to produce a copy.[7] Other countries may even lack this basic protection, and Google's databases are distributed all over the world. Since the Patriot Act was passed, it's unclear whether this ECPA protection is worth much anymore in the U.S., or whether it even applies to email that originates from non-citizens in other countries."

And even if someone tells you it's encrypted, the from, to and other fields are not encrypted because those are needed for the current email system to work.
Bob

You missed nothing. I've told folk for years that email is not secure. And if you want to discuss why, we only need to do a little digging into the FBI's "Going Dark" initiative. I offered more about how your email loses it's protected communication in only 180 days.

I can only hope folk will reconsider email for all communications.
Bob