OT: IE in the news

[Tim Greer]

.....
What is clear is that all the reasons people do use IE exist, that it
is frustrating in many ways to others for various reasons, that IE
works pretty well for most things people do (otherwise they would
probably not use it so much) and, simply, many people know no better.
Don't worry, I share your frustration that the world is not a better
place!

I don't disagree that IE works. If you bundle it with an OS (the most
popular one by far, over its entire existence), you're not going to see
many people find a "good" reason (for them) to switch. Too bad they
don't bundle something else. Anyway, complaining about it isn't going
to change anything. I just wish things would evolve a little more
quickly.

 

[Bergamot]

Most users of the Internet (home users that just
surf, buy, chat, whatever), know about the history of exploits in IE
and OE.

You give people too much credit. Most home users just use whatever came
with the PC. They don't hang around newsgroups like this so they never
hear about IE's history of exploits unless they know someone else who
has, and that person can convince them to dump IE. How often do you
think that happens? Not much, I'd guess.

 

[Tim Greer]

You give people too much credit. Most home users just use whatever
came with the PC. They don't hang around newsgroups like this so they
never hear about IE's history of exploits unless they know someone
else who has, and that person can convince them to dump IE. How often
do you think that happens? Not much, I'd guess.

Most normal users I run into haven't heard of or hang around newsgroup
and always bring up the question of what browser they should use, after
hearing about another exploit in IE (usually posted on CNN, or some
ISP's home page). That's not to say that's common, but it is common in
my own experience. I have no doubts regarding people's lack of
intelligence, believe me.

 

[Neredbojias]

I know it's a fact. I repeat, "Why in this day and age would anyone use
IE or OE for actual web surfing or checking email"? Do you think it's
just continued ignorance, hubris, uncaring, or?

Well, roughly half "the people" are basically computer-illiterate and
don't know any better (-and the progs do come bundled with Windows.) Some
are just lazy, some suffer from hubris I guess, and some patently don't
care about making the world a better place at the expense of their own
effort. Anyway, merry Christmas and long live dissension.

That's a good point.

<grin />

 

[+mrcakey]

I don't think so. If that was your only aim, you would email them. No,
you have bigger aims, to help alert the whole world! Don't underestimate
yourself! <g>

That is INDEED what I was aiming for!!! It's a golden opportunity to spread
the word. You've been telling them to use Firefox or Opera for ages to no
avail - well now the *BBC* says you should too.

+mrcakey

 

[Els]

Same for OE, who uses OE these days,

I do. I have HTML disabled, and it works perfectly. Yes I've tried
Thunderbird, but it has a couple of downsides that OE doesn't have.
OE's downsides are cured with Quotefix.

and why would anyone use either IE or OE?

Because it comes with the system, and until some geek explains to you
why it's bad, you just use what's there.

 

[dorayme]

That is INDEED what I was aiming for!!! It's a golden opportunity to spread
the word. You've been telling them to use Firefox or Opera for ages to no
avail - well now the *BBC* says you should too.

It was on the Australian national broadcast TV news tonight too! There
was this young MS exec proudly saying he uses IE and is not about to
change!

What a nice opportunity. Might ring a few of my clients to let them know
this is a great opportunity to wean themselves off IE. They have never
seen a good reason to before.

 

[dorayme]

I do. I have HTML disabled, and it works perfectly. Yes I've tried
Thunderbird, but it has a couple of downsides that OE doesn't have.
OE's downsides are cured with Quotefix.


Because it comes with the system, and until some geek explains to you
why it's bad, you just use what's there.

I used OE for years and years on Mac OS < X for both email and news and
was pretty happy with it. It looked nice and worked well.

 

[Neredbojias]

I do. I have HTML disabled, and it works perfectly. Yes I've tried
Thunderbird, but it has a couple of downsides that OE doesn't have.
OE's downsides are cured with Quotefix.

What downsides?

 

[Els]

What downsides?

Of OE, or Thunderbird?

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Of OE, or Thunderbird?

Of Thunderbird, I can tell you downsides of OE which Quotefix doesn't fix...

 

[Els]

Of Thunderbird,

I've downloaded and installed TB again today, just to see if anything
had changed since I checked last time, and that appears to be the
case. My main gripe was that when replying back and forth a couple of
times, the skipped lines between the replies were adding every time.
Start with one skipped line, reply, and it has become 2 lines, reply
again, and there's a space of 3 lines.

They seem to have solved that now, and it now only looks like lines
are added. The space still gets larger, but it's not an actual empty
line, but merely a visual thing - the larger the indent for replied to
text, the larger also the distance vertically.

I prefer regular indent markers. When composing without HTML, it looks
fine, regular markers for replied to text, with an added marker for
each level. But when reading received email, even in plain text, the
markers are gone and instead there's coloured vertical lines. Somehow
they don't behave logical to me, I really prefer the OE-Quotefix
system.

I can tell you downsides of OE which Quotefix doesn't fix...

I don't doubt that
But they're probably downsides that don't effect me - I have no
problem at all with OE/Quotefix.

I do know one advantage of Thunderbird that OE doesn't have, which I
might use once in a while if I'd use TB: the portable version - load
TB on a USB stick, and have access to your email regardless of which
computer you're on. Not important enough to me to switch though.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Els wrote:

I prefer regular indent markers. When composing without HTML, it looks
fine, regular markers for replied to text, with an added marker for
each level. But when reading received email, even in plain text, the
markers are gone and instead there's coloured vertical lines. Somehow
they don't behave logical to me, I really prefer the OE-Quotefix
system.

I use SeaMonkey so advance settings with about:config are simple, but
editing the pref.js you can customize Gecko...

pref("mail.quoted_graphical", false);

Bookmark this useful resource

http://www.geocities.com/pratiksolanki/
Hidden Mozilla/Firefox/Thunderbird Prefs

I don't doubt that
But they're probably downsides that don't effect me - I have no
problem at all with OE/Quotefix.

OE use to store all accounts in a single Global Inbox, I assume they
still do, since now TB defaults to this Global Inbox option, but you can
easily change this behavior. I have 5 accounts, I do not want everything
in one pile...makes finding things a pain. Never understood MS "dump
everything in one pile" philosophy. If you separate and organize your
data it makes finding stuff *much* easier. I have over 600GB disk space
on my workstation and over a 1/3 is used and I have no trouble finding a
file. Latest patch tried to push that Desktop Search on me. I tested
it...what crap, doesn't beat good old hierarchical folders and a logical
filing scheme! In fact I miss old W2K search. I've hacked XP's to get it
close, but W2K's was much faster especially when searching file content.

Did they ever fix the OE problem with large Inboxes? If a folder got
more than X# of message OE would bog down and searching was painfully
slow. I have keep all my messages...since old NN Communicator days.
Messages are stored in large text files I have never had trouble
transferring or rescuing messages.

I have rescued and recovered messages from client's failing hard drives.
Folks that corrupted their filesystems or profiles and you can still
piece together mailboxes. Even if folks delete messages but haven't
compressed the folder yet I have Perl scripts to recover the messages,
you can also do this with a good text editor. OE binary format is not so
flexible...

I do know one advantage of Thunderbird that OE doesn't have, which I
might use once in a while if I'd use TB: the portable version - load
TB on a USB stick, and have access to your email regardless of which
computer you're on. Not important enough to me to switch though.

 

[Tim Streater]

Els wrote:



I use SeaMonkey so advance settings with about:config are simple, but
editing the pref.js you can customize Gecko...

pref("mail.quoted_graphical", false);

Bookmark this useful resource

http://www.geocities.com/pratiksolanki/
Hidden Mozilla/Firefox/Thunderbird Prefs


OE use to store all accounts in a single Global Inbox, I assume they
still do, since now TB defaults to this Global Inbox option, but you can
easily change this behavior. I have 5 accounts, I do not want everything
in one pile...makes finding things a pain. Never understood MS "dump
everything in one pile" philosophy. If you separate and organize your
data it makes finding stuff *much* easier. I have over 600GB disk space
on my workstation and over a 1/3 is used and I have no trouble finding a
file. Latest patch tried to push that Desktop Search on me. I tested
it...what crap, doesn't beat good old hierarchical folders and a logical
filing scheme! In fact I miss old W2K search. I've hacked XP's to get it
close, but W2K's was much faster especially when searching file content.

Did they ever fix the OE problem with large Inboxes? If a folder got
more than X# of message OE would bog down and searching was painfully
slow. I have keep all my messages...since old NN Communicator days.
Messages are stored in large text files I have never had trouble
transferring or rescuing messages.

I have rescued and recovered messages from client's failing hard drives.
Folks that corrupted their filesystems or profiles and you can still
piece together mailboxes. Even if folks delete messages but haven't
compressed the folder yet I have Perl scripts to recover the messages,
you can also do this with a good text editor. OE binary format is not so
flexible...

Personally I use Eudora - it has so many features missing on the likes
of Thunderbird.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Personally I use Eudora - it has so many features missing on the likes
of Thunderbird.

Do remember that both Firefox and Thunderbird are "strip down" by
default. If you want features, add what you need via extensions. It is
intended to be counter to the MS "everything AND the kitchen sink"
hogware...

 

[Tim Streater]

Do remember that both Firefox and Thunderbird are "strip down" by
default. If you want features, add what you need via extensions. It is
intended to be counter to the MS "everything AND the kitchen sink"
hogware...

Good policy, but can I get tabs, ability to edit received mails, and the
Fcc: feature? Well, perhaps I will via Penelope.

 

[Blinky the Shark]

I've downloaded and installed TB again today, just to see if anything had
changed since I checked last time, and that appears to be the case. My
main gripe was that when replying back and forth a couple of times, the
skipped lines between the replies were adding every time. Start with one
skipped line, reply, and it has become 2 lines, reply again, and there's a
space of 3 lines.

They seem to have solved that now, and it now only looks like lines are
added. The space still gets larger, but it's not an actual empty line, but
merely a visual thing - the larger the indent for replied to text, the
larger also the distance vertically.

I prefer regular indent markers. When composing without HTML, it looks
fine, regular markers for replied to text, with an added marker for each
level. But when reading received email, even in plain text, the markers
are gone and instead there's coloured vertical lines.

The QuoteColors extension allows you to toggle the vertical lines off and
get back to the ">" indicators. Are you aware that there are tons of
extensions available for customizing TB, just as there are for FF?

TB isn't my preferred mail/news client (I don't care for combo clients
like that in the first place). But the fact remains that it's *highly*
customizable.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Good policy, but can I get tabs,

Look like it is in the works...

http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2007/06/thunderbird-earns-its-tabs/
Thunderbird earns its tabs - Mozilla Links

Also there may be an extension, new extensions are always being added...

ability to edit received mails,

Not sure what you mean here? (right-click>Edit as new)?

and the Fcc: feature?

What is Fcc: ?

Well, perhaps I will via Penelope.

 

[Tim Greer]

I do. I have HTML disabled, and it works perfectly.

Just "disabling HTML" doesn't save you from exploits when there's a new
exploit in OE. If you keep it up to date, you'll probably be okay
though (of course, that goes for pretty much anything).

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Fcc: feature?

Just looked up FCC, do you me File Carbon Copy? If so, TB as all
predecessors back to Netscape have had the "Sent" folder by default that
supplies this function, unless I am missing something here.

If you try FF or TB and "Great, but I wish..." then check out the
extensions. Chances are someone else has also felt the same and also
took the time to create an extension to fulfill the need.