Re: Virus Resistive Software

[chris <spamoff.danx@ntlworld.com>]

Jeffrey Carter wrote:

> The problem is more the insistence on using software that is known to be 
> vulnerable and faulty, such as Outlook, despite the availability of 
> better software. For example, I use Mozilla, and have had no problems 
> with the current crop of viruses and worms. Outlook is probably the most 
> vulnerable mail program out there; at least when I had to use it, by 
> default it installed with most of its protections turned off, and most 
> of its most vulnerable features turned on. Nevertheless, it is probably 
> the most widely used mail program. No amount of decent engineering can 
> solve this problem.

I agree.

<rant on>

I also don't think their is a need for yet another mail client.  There 
are free ones that don't suffer the ills of M$s big mistakes, and they 
are open source.  Fairdoes they're not written in Ada, but what is and 
why does it matter?  (You can't sell on the basis of language or 
technical superiority, Mozilla tried "use this it's driven by a C++ 
gecko toolkit and it'll allow you to do xyz"... if you're a geek you 
might care - and they failed... and now this is recognised just when 
they lose their major backer).  They work and some are very nice.

The problem is, as Jeff points out, people don't use them.  They don't 
want to know.  M$ hath given them a mail client and it giveth them mail. 
   It's convienant, does what they want, *there* and it costs money so 
it must be good ("you get what you pay for").  I'm using Thunderbird 
0.2a (it's good... I didn't want to touch it because it's 0.1 but 
Firebird was good so temptation won.  It's a faster Mail with a better 
interface and interface bugs ;) ) right now and will never ever touch 
Outlook or it's little brother again.  What idiot allows scripts to run 
willy nilly?  No-one except...  and they made HTML mail a no no on the 
internet!

The best way to get rid of Outlook, is to yank it out or disable it, pop 
something like Mozilla Mail in.  If that's too bizzarre skin it to look 
like outlook and see how it goes.  It's got to configure out the box, do 
what they want, and do more than that.  Mozilla Mail and Thunderbird do 
many things that Outlook does, it does more like Junk filtering and not 
open stupid executables but still has some problems.  A few people tell 
me they would use them i.f.f. they provided better mass and offline 
mailing facilities (for businesses).  This is something users want. 
It's no good as an extension, or atleast one that comes with the 
installation.  It has to be there!!!  Thunderbird doesn't even install 
out of the box, despite being fully functional and more issues being UI 
related than functionally related.  It's at the start of it's journey 
but it won't do any damage unless it get's installed by ordinary folk!

<rant off>

Sorry, but this mail client business hit a nerve...


Chris