Timeouts

[#1]

For a few days now my email client has been slow to receive mails, and has failed with time-outs when sending email.  This is using Thunderbird (on a W7 laptop).
Today I have installed Windows LiveMail.  This is now also experiencing time-outs on receiving mail.
The problem seems to be intermittent; webmail seems to working ok, as does email on my phone (WP8.1); but it's hard to say conclusively.
Is anyone else experiencing this?  Is it my setup, or the servers having an issue?

[#2]

Are you using any security software and if so, have you tried temproarily disabling it to see if the problem goes away?

[#3]

Bob
Thanks for your response and apologies for delay getting back to you.
I understand where you're coming from, with it seeming to be impacting only email clients on my laptop and not webmail or phone; but as far as I am aware nothing had altered on the laptop.  I use Norton but nothing had changed with it (other than the AV signatures); config and engine version hadn't altered when this issue started.  TBH I don't like turning off protection either, even for relatively short periods.
Problem is it seems to be intermittent, so is hard to track down.  About the only thing I can be sure of is that the problem is between client and server.  As mentioned it is not client-specific as it has happened on Thunderbird and Live Mail clients.  As yet I am not sure if it is specific to this one laptop.
I did wonder if it was POP3 specific...
As no-one else has posted I am assuming it it is just me 😞
I am monitoring it and will report back if I have any further findings. 
Thanks