How to Enable SSL/HTTPS in Yahoo Mail and Gmail?

Within the last two weeks, at least four friends including one family member have their yahoo mail accounts hacked.  I believe their passwords were not easy to be guessed.  Either they clicked too quickly on links in email sent by their friends whose email accounts were infected or hacked, or there maybe a technical break-in at the Yahoo server side.  Regarding the first mistake, do not click on suspicious-looking email.

I use the following guidelines to delete emails with high accuracy:

• The sender does NOT address me with correct at least first name and have an URL, attachment or an image. (For example, "Dear Resident")
• The sender addresses me with correct first name, but the content has an URL with suspicious domain name.  (You can google that domain name like "Is XXX.com a virus?")
• The sender addresses me with correct first name, but the image is clickable and lead to a suspicious domain name address.  Mouse your cursor over the image would reveal the URL.  Look for the beginning portion that ends with .net, .com, .edu ..etc.  Whatever comes after that is irrelevant, even if it says "www.google.com".
• The sender addresses me with correct first name, but the content has an attachment of file type .exe or zip.  Yahoo mail and Gmail most of the times are able to catch those emails with infected attachment.  When I feel unsure, I would email the sender for acknowledgement before downloading the attachment.

Regarding the second mistake, I was advised to enable SSL feature.  Both Yahoo mail and Gmail offer SSL/HTTPS, but not enabled by default, because SSL uses more computer server resources.

In Yahoo Mail, click on "Mail Options" -> "General" -> "Enable SSL" -> "Save"

In Gmail, click on "Settings" -> "Always use https" -> "Save Changes"

Best to remove sensitive materials in email accounts.

An added layer of security is to leverage Google Authenticator, available for Gmail accounts only.

If, unfortunately, the computer is infected with virus, try to use Eset Online Scanner to detect and remove the viruses.