Dilwyn Jones writes: > 2. If using Outlook Express, make sure that the preview pane is closed, as > these worms install themselves even if you only preview the message.
This may belong to the category "Famous Last Words", however I believe the above statement to be a myth. Unless a virus can somehow jump the species barrier and install itself via html, there is no way just pre-viewing a mail can infect your machine. Send me one to try! You may now consider me a dangerous acquaintance, but I must admit to habitual unprotected intercourse with the internet. In the eight/nine years that Ive had a Windoze PC Ive never used any kind of anti-virus program apart from my own wits (except occasionally the free F-Prot to see if some elusive computer problem could, after all, be caused by a virus). During this time Ive had two viruses. On the first occasion I learnt my lesson, and on the other, someone other than me learnt the same lesson at my expense. In both cases the problem was discovered PDQ and resolved without calamity. This past week Ive had about half a dozen virii sent to me by mail. I quite liked the one purporting to be the return of a failed message delivery. It had me tricked for a split second as a number of my correspondents regularly omit to acknowledge the receipt of the sort of mail that common decency would dictate that they should (no names, but I hope some of you are reading this! I assume you must assume Im a mind reader!) As I wished to have the satisfaction of knowing which correspondent I had wrongly put down to being an uncivilised, unprincipled, ignorant so-and-so, I might have been tempted to open it without checking it out. However, there were so many clues that the mail was bogus that self-preservation soon turned the tables on curiosity. While I dont deny that viruses (and other cyber lifeforms) do an awful lot of damage, my own experience tells me they are vastly overrated. The reason that poor Lookout is so prone is not because it is such a /bad/ program, but because it is one of, if not the most widely used stand-alone email client. (And the reason it is so popular is not because it is such a /good/ program, but because it is distributed for "free" with every copy of Windoze, one of the downsides Roy forgot to discuss in his euology of all-inclusive operating systems) Per _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List
