Ertugrul =?UTF-8?B?U8O2eWxlbWV6?= <es@ertes.de> wrote in
news:fv7aq6$ta7$02$1@news.t-online.com:

> bz <bz+csm@ch100-5.chem.lsu.edu> wrote:
>
>> E-mail should be plain text, not HTML. The behavior is correct.
>> If you want to send a web page to someone, send them the URL so they
>> can visit the page.
>>
>> If you NEED to send HTML to someone, zip or compress it into a file
>> and rename the file so that it does NOT end in .zip (I rename mine
>> ..piz)
>
> What's wrong with HTML emails without remote content? Why the
> unnecessary inconvenience with ZIP files? I understand that in some
> places (e.g. newsgroups) HTML mails are inappropriate, but why this
> generalization?

Oh, here are a few of my reasons:

1) E-mail was originally designed to convey textual information, NOT html.
Information, not 'beauty' or 'cute'.

2) html enabled e-mail clients are executing programs that others have
sent you when they render html coded text.

3) it is practially impossible to 'foolproof' such rendering so as to
protect the viewer from all possible attacks.

4) embeded images in html can tell the sender 'an idiot
just opened the e-mail I sent them' so you just told the spammer that the
e-mail address is a good one. He can now sell it to other spammers.

5) html encoded stuff takes more bytes to transmit. Often lots more.

6) html can be coded so that the viewer sees one link while being sent to a
different place on the web.

7) Those that fight spam OFTEN use text only e-mail client in self defense.
I do.
8) Some discard ALL html encoded and graphic encoded incoming e-mail,
unviewed.


There are several other good reasons that I can't think of at the moment
but they are all related to 'microsoft thought it would be cool to make
messages pretty. They assumed a small offfice environment.' Since they
came up with that bright idea, many viruses have been spread that way.
They keep plugging holes in the dike, but there are more hole yet to be
discovered.

It (html via e-mail) was a bad idea to start with. It is STILL a bad idea.
Nothing I can think of will ever make it a good idea.

Of course, opinions are like noses, everyone has one.

--
bz

please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.

bz+csm@ch100-5.chem.lsu.edu remove ch100-5 to avoid spam trap