Strange new Mail behavior in Lion after iCloud implementation

Question

I never use Apple Mail, I only use Gmail through my browser.
However, after getting an iPhone and installing iOS 5 on that, and enabling iCloud, the Apple Mail icon now bounces in the dock a few times a day, as if something is making it want to launch (even though I have never launched it on purpose).
Since the timing of this seemed iCloud-related, I searched through the settings I thought most likely to cause this, and none of them are enabled, but maybe I missed one. If so, can someone please tell me where that setting might be?
I looked in System Preferences->Mail, Contacts & Calendars and the 'iCloud' account syncs the following, which all have checkmarks: Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, Photostream, Documents & Dtaa, and Find My Mac. However, the one that might affect this, "Mail & Notes", is not checked.
Similarly, in System Preferences->iCloud, the same boxes are checked as listed above, and "Mail & Notes" is NOT checked.
What am I missing here?

Answer 1

If you want to download random stuff from anywhere, or if you need or want to let your patches fall behind, or if you're going load whatever a pop-up or advert or drive-by package or toolbar that somebody wants to load, clicking on stuff in random mail messages (including fake invites, fake shipping reciepts, lottery announcements, etc), yes, you might consider loading an add-on tool.
OS X ships with Xprotect support enabled, and this can and has been used to lock down components (such as the Java JVM plug-in) when something nasty is loose. 
The OS X Server variant ships with anti-malware tools — ClamAV — that can scan mail and related storage, and which can mitigate malware for OS X as well as for other platforms.
But anti-malware and anti-virus add-ons?  In general, not needed IMO. 
Recent attacks have targeted Flash and Java, and these are easily mitigated.
To avoid any need for anti-malware tools, keep your patches current, keep the Java JVM plug-in disabled in your web browsers (or don't install Java) and use a Flash blocker (or deinstall Flash) in your browser, don't download any stuff you didn't go looking for, pick gonzo passwords, have good backups and preferably a copy that can be offsite and disconnected, use a gateway-firewall, use sftp and not ftp, and all the rest of the usual advice applies...
There's no panacea: an anti-malware tool probably won't protect you from a wholly new attack or from what's called an advanced persistent attack, nor from spearphishing, either.  So you still have to watch what you're doing.
The cure can be a problem, too: anti-malware tools work by doing the same sorts of things as the malware wants to do, insinuating itself into low-level corners of the OS, but attempting to detect and block the malware.  The act of connecting into the OS can potentially cause problems for the "host" OS, just as malware can corrupt and crash a system.