Goooooood morning vowe
by Volker Weber
As you read your mail in the morning, you find out that every single message is a Windows virus. What does that mean?
- Too many people still using Outlook
- Windows and gullible users do not match
- Windows and gullible users match all the time
100 % virusses and no false negative spam message? No "real" message although there are new comments on the site? Something must be clogging the pipe. Fire up a browser and look at the message queue. Bingo. Yet another carefully broken mail envelope that is f$%§king up the system. Delete all 252 messages that are obviously spam and let the rest of them roll in.
Twelve more Windows virusses. And the missing "real" messages. Verdict: There are three factors that bring the system to a halt. Windows, gullible users, and spammers who can't read specs. Make that "programmers who write spamming tools".
Comments
Changing the standard mail program sounds like a very healthy decision to be made immediately for Microsoft windows users... ;-)
I am in the process of adding some s/w to a brand new win2K installation for a friend. Have chosen FireFox as browser, what would your raccomandation be for a good Open Software mail program alternative to Outlook Express?
Pieter
I don't really know. I use Mail.app on the Mac and Evolution on Linux. On Windows I would probably go with Thunderbird if you already have chosen Firefox. It would make sense however to stick with the Mozilla Suite until Firefox/Thunderbird are done. No strong opinion for either side though.
I am very happy with Mozilla 1.6. Quiet fast at startup, nice pgp-implementation (enigmail) and tabbed browsing!
Lots of plugins for things you might need - although, this holds true for thunderburd/firefox also.
Why do you say that Outlook is the reason for those viruses?
My installation of Outlook blocks pif, exe, scr and so
on, but if it wouldn't I'd still have to execute them
myself to get infected.
What should MS change? Outlook and Outlook Express don't
execute Javascript in mails anymore and I see no difference
between them and e.g. Thunderbird (excellent programm) in that
area!
Which system do you use that stops working when a malformed message arrives?
There are a number of virusses that fire in Outlook without opening attachments. Microsoft issues patches for those vulnerabilities but obviously many people do not apply those patches. If you do so on a regular basis BEFORE fetching your mail, you will probably be safe. However, a diversity in mail programs would make those virusses less likely. I am not saying that Outlook (Express) are bad. I am saying that too many people use them (and they are the most likely to be hit). But anyone is entitled to be in the front line. :-)
The program that fails when mail messages are VERY broken is NTpullmail. I use this program to fetch mail from a dozen or so mail accounts. I will need to switch to a more robust program. However I do not plan to migrate my mail server from Windows 2000 Server to Linux. The next machine will be on Linux where I can use fetchmail.
Pullmail is a great little utility - but every other day now a malformed email stops it from working...even worse, because it never downloads all of the emails in my POP account, it never deletes any either so I get repeated emails filling up my inbox so it doesn't pay to be away for too long! :(
*sigh* if its not one thing, its another!
After a few more days of testing Mozilla thunderbird, I found myself really impressed with the sophisticated user interface and all features buid into this Open Software project.
I found it so good that I gave it a try in it's other forms, Linux an OSX on my other computers. There is even a localized version for Italian but I guess most languages.
Subsequently a gave a shot to firefox as well (it looks familiar to Safari users :-)
I know, maybe this might be not the best place to do so however I certainly reccomend to all Windozers to give the Mozilla suite (firefox + thunderbird) a shot.
It may make your life a lot easier... :-)
Pieter
