After automatic update of the latest beta version, I cannot download email messages from my email server, CalPoly. CAUSED by ESET?

Question

When I booted I was asked a question whether I should allow connections to my network. It seemed strange, but I fell for it and allowed. Upon reflection, it was probably a phishing expedition that wrecked my ability to download messages and possibly inserted a trojan horse. I am running a MacPro with Mountain Lion OSX. I have very good protection software.
I can obtain messages on my iPhone, so it is not a provider problem.
Help!!

Answer 1

<blockquote>
My days of hacking around are over.</blockquote>
In that case your days of email clients are also probably coming to a close.
Less and Less are the ports and protocols being considered by AV companies and others as everyone uses web mail. Like you, I use ESET and have had no problems with the NOD32 anti virus product. But I have heard some rather sad tales about the Suite being overly protective. In this day of ubiquitous firewalls in AV products (In my opinion a very bad thing) Only Microsoft products can be expected to work out of the box as the market leading office software vendor. The anti virus vendors firewalls +Anti virus products generally account for about 95% of mail collection issues. With incorrect settings making up about 2 or 3 percent of the remainder. Real Thunderbird bugs do exist, but are only a very tiny part of the total.