(e-mail address removed) (Buzz Wearingoff) wrote:
I am looking for a decent e-mail program. I am currently using Outlook
Express until I find one. I've tried Eudora, it was great, but I don't
like ad-ware or cripple-ware; Incredimail was incredibly obnoxious =)
per my friends.
Pegasus, I just could not get the hang of it. It was cumbersome at
best. It just seemed to be laid out weird. Anyone have any thoughts on
Pegasus? Perhaps I was going about it all wrong. The last time I tried
it was about a year ago.
Also, anyone have any suggestions for any other free email programs?
I used Netscape mail forever. Then I tried Calypso, which just wasn't
quite what I wanted. Them Moz mail, which was clunky. Now I've settled
with Thunderbird, which is the Moz mail client stripped down to the
essentials; a stand alone email client!
http://texturizer.net/thunderbird/
http://texturizer.net/thunderbird/download.html
It's pretty darned nice!
One suggestion with any email program that allows it. Set attachments
inline and set message filters to delete (or to move to a suspect
folder) any message containing ".pif, .eml, .bat, etc." in the message
body. This works like a charm in immediately removing the many varied
worm attachments.
Many clients do not show the attachment extension by default,
especially doeble extensions. The filters will grab anything you
shouldn't play with before you ever get a chance to. Doing the grunt
work for you is a big plus also.
A list of executables you might filter:
..pif
..bat
..exe (will get valid sfx's sent by friends also
..zip (same as above)
..doc (same as above, but there are Word macro malwares)
..scr (screensaver)
..shs
..vbs
..vbe
..js
..jse
..wsf
..ws
..hta
Does anyone have any more dangerous extensions that should be
filtered?
The zip, exe and doc filters are best set to be moved to a different
folder. It's still dangerous though, as the current worms spoof
addresses and one might come as addresses by a friend of yours.
The others I simply delete on site with filters. It's pretty unlikely
that I will receive an important email that contains ".pif" as a typo
in it. This applies for the others listed above too.
Anyway, it works like a charm in eliminating dangerous attachments as
the first order of business. It has a spam filter that is supposed to
learn as you manually mark the spam it missed.
I see from the site Thunderbird is written to be safe(r):
"2.8 Is Thunderbird susceptible to e-mail viruses?
Thunderbird will not allow a virus or worm to execute automatically.
You can see what attachments have been sent to you without a virus
being able to execute, and you would have to save a file to your
system and deliberately run it before it could cause any harm.
JavaScript is switched off by default for mail and news, so an e-mail
cannot run script code just by being opened.
As with any mail program, take proper caution before running any file
that you receive in e-mail. Appropriate anti-virus software should
also help keep you safer."
And the Spam info:
"2.4 How do I use the spam filters?
Mozilla Thunderbird comes with build-in spam filters, effectively
moving (or removing) unwanted e-mail messages from your mail folders.
There is a great article at Netscape DevEdge explaining how to fight
junk mail with Netscape 7.1. This article applies to Mozilla
Thunderbird too.
.... link to spam fighting"
One of the great things about Netscape 7.1 is that it includes the
powerful junk-mail (a.k.a. "spam") filtering introduced in Mozilla
1.3. This filter technology is based on Bayesian analysis of incoming
content, and as such can be trained by the user to meet individual
spam-fighting needs. This ability can replace the use of server-side
filtering, or can be used in concert with such filtering."
Overall, two thumbs up! It's small, fast and effective. It's laid out
so that it wasn't completely foreign in what I expected.
