be7a wrote: > > On 2/3/02 8:02 AM Michael Collette wrote: >... > > Seems that most of the virii infections I've personally dealt with > > resulted from a user trying to go through their mail quickly. Speed > > facilitates the accidental clicking on "Yes" rather than the wiser > > "No" answer. > > I agree. Mozilla should warn the user in a popup, *only* when s/he > saves anything besides obviously safe file types (like .txt) to disk.
Alerts don't work, for the same reason Web popups don't work: they're an interruption, not a help. As time goes on, the number of alerts used in Mozilla should (ideally) approach zero. > This could eventually become a list of file types configured under > the "advanced" preferences section. The Advanced preferences section should not exist. (In my opinion.) > > Might be a tough sell. The bulk of the public has some notion that > > E-Mail propogates virii. That same bulk of folks don't have a clue > > about the mechanics of these things. I only base this opinion on > > the notion that if they did, we wouldn't have problems with virii! That notion is flawed, because it confuses human knowledge with human psychology. Whether or not humans know that e-mail spreads viruses is, to a large extent, irrelevant to the fact that they're still going to click `OK' in any alert that pops up. > With a simple warning popup message, Mozilla could help dispell the > FUD[1] Micro$oft has perpetuated (because they want to allow things to > be executed easily from within their products). Most humans don't read alerts. > A pop-up warning in > Mozilla could even include a link to an "email viruses explained" page > that discusses this topic in very understandable language. Most humans don't read the help, either. >... > <HalfSerious> > You should start a business that caters to newbies. You could develop > an SMTP server that removes viruses /as they are received/. Many competent corporate sysadmins have already set up their mail servers to strip viruses, and in some cases any executable file at all, from incoming messages. By the way, a server that removes viruses as they are *received* would be POP or IMAP, not SMTP. >... > > Anyone who actually reads release notes probably doesn't have much > > in the way of virus problems in the first place. It's them folks > > that don't read documentation that are the concern, and I'd guess > > that them folks are probably in the vast majority. > > I agree: people don't pay attention, or they don't understand. > Perhaps an ominous popup message would do the trick. No, it wouldn't. :-) > Another point to ponder: who is the intended audience for Mozilla? > Will AOL ever make Mozilla/Netscape the standard email client for > their less-savvy users? Netscape (or any other Mozilla distribution) is far too complicated for many experienced users, let alone AOL subscribers. > The present audience is people who /will/ > read the release notes and /are/ willing to take risks with new > software. >... I would be extremely surprised if more than ten percent of Netscape users read the release notes. -- Matthew `mpt' Thomas, Mozilla UI Design component default assignee thing <http://mpt.phrasewise.com/>
