On 22/02/07, David Potter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi Peter,
Thank you for this. I will probably take your advice and change to
Thunderbird. I've just had a look at it on www.mozilla.com . I went
through a couple of sections of the tutorial and it looks fairly straight
forward.
You should also check out Mozilla's Firefox web browser, if you're not
already using it. Internet Explorer has very similar security
vulnerabilities to Outlook/OE, and using and alternative such as
Firefox (or Opera, which I prefer) is one of the best security moves
one could make (other than changing operating systems, of course). If
you are using IE 6 then you will find that Firefox is a much easier to
use browser as well. IE 7 addresses most of the usability issues of IE
6, but not the security issues (at least not the version that is
compatible with XP).
According to Dotan Cohen, who also replied to my email, "Thunderbird lacks
some of the advanced features of Outlook, but I
believe that it is very similar to Outlook Express. The main reason
that I suggest you switch is the fact that Outlook Express is very
susceptible to viruses, worms, and other malware. It's tight
integration with the Windows operating system means that exploits have
a direct means of accessing kernel processes (or their windows
equivalents) because OE and Windows share memory space."
So, this would seem to be another good reason for changing. I didn't
realise that I'd had my head stuck in the sand for so long!
Er, your turn. As a biochemist, does anti-bacterial soap have any
real-world advantages over regular bar soap?
I'm sorry to bother you again, but do you happen to know if I can get rid of
Outlook Express, when I'm satisfied that Thunderbird is working ok, by
uninstalling it? What I'm getting at is, if it shares files with Windows,
will uninstalling it cause problems for Windows, or will any shared files
simply remain because they are required by Windows?
I don't use Windows, so I don't know if OE is uninstallable by
conventional means. So long as your default client is set to something
OTHER than OE, and you don't open OE by yourself, then you should be
safe from it's vulnerabilities (assuming that your machine is not
owned). I do know that Internet Exporer can be removed by
unconventional means, but that it causes problems when removed. For
instance, the Windows help files are really compressed html files and
removing IE removes the trident engine from Windows (it's a shared
component and apparently Windows dependancy management leaves a lot to
be desired).
Dotan Cohen
http://lyricslist.com/lyrics/lyrics/73/64/beatles/the_beatles_the_white_album_side_b.html
http://technology-sleuth.com/long_answer/what_is_a_router.html
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