On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 09:49:52 -0000, "Mary Fisher" strung together this:
That's why no-one said anything to you, some people are quite happy to change, I've converted quite a few people recently to using Firefox instead of IE and Thunderbird instead of OE.
If we're going to be picky and stroppy can you snip posts properly rather than leaving all the irrelevant bits in, or don't post.
Hate to wade into the middle of an OE argument, but I really don't believe that the reason you give is accurate. People use IE/OE because that's what's on their machine when they first get it.
The products (IE & OE) do 'work', in that they largely allow users to do most of what they want to do most of the time, but that doesn't mean they are particularly good tools.
The free blade that you get when you buy a circular saw 'works', but in most cases it's a very poor blade. Unless you spend some time learning about blades, and the differences between them, and experimenting with other blades, you'll never know how poor that first blade is. Cuts wood, doesn't it?
My biggest objection to OE is on security - I really don't care if users want to live with a limited set of functionality - that's their choice - but the inherent poor security of the application has very widespread consequences.
On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 11:01:07 +0000, Grunff strung together this:
I really wouldn't bother if I were you, some people don't want to listen and Mary is one of those, she already seems to know everything.
Isn't Outlook (as in, the paid-for Office component) susceptible to the same MS-targeted problems as OE, as regards email?
I use OE as a newsreader myself (with Outlook for email), admittedly for no better reason than the fact that OE was 'there' when I wanted a newsreader, and I keep meaning to get round to using something better. Would be interested to know what others here prefer and why!
David
Knode or Pan on Linux for the simple reason that it is not a walking security exploit!
On 15 Dec 2004, Lobster wrote
-snip-
XNews; not for any wildly dogmatic reason, but just that I'd never used OE when it was recommended to me.
I particularly like the way it lets me have a vertical screen division (tree on the left; message text on the right), and it automatically assigns the majority of the screen to whichever side you're dealing with.
I've heard good things about XanaNews; I tried it and it seemed quite good, but as there was no screaming advantage to cause me to switch, I've stayed with XNews.
It sure is. Using either Outlook or OE is inherently unsafe, and can only be made safe through a lot of additional work.
This is really a personal preference thing - a lot of it depends on how you like your intreface to look/work. Having said that, if you don't have server-side spam filtering, give Thunderbird a go. Activate the spam filtering, and you will be amazed at how good it is.
On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 16:08:24 GMT, "Lobster" strung together this:
Yes. I use Mozilla Thunderbird for emails as a direct replacement for OE, it does come across as being very OE based so you won't really notice much of a difference during general use. If you do try Thunderbird the try using Firefox too as a IE replacement. I have found it to be the only true popup blocker and I feel happier using it as opposed to IE.
I use Forte Agent 2, mainly because I've always used Free Agent and got used to the look and feel. It's not too bad but I got the paid for copy for free, I wouldn't pay for it as there are plenty of decent free newsreaders out. I did trial a few a while back and found Gravity to be pretty good.
As my computers generally arrive as a box of bits, nothing comes installed on the machine. I use OE for the same reason that I use any other MS product - it is the best for my purposes. One of the main considerations being that a number of users, with a variety of computing skill levels, should be able to use the products they are most likely to be familiar with. Yes, it is the most popular target for attacks, but that does not mean that other programmes or operating systems are immune from attacks and they usually do not come with automatic installation of security updates when vulnerabilities are found.
Colin Bignell
Less of an issue now. Due to patches released in 2001, most of the nastiest holes have been plugged. Many of the more recent viruses I see are encrypted archives, making the user open the file, enter a password contained in the message and run the executable manually. Don't tell me that OE would be any worse than Thunderbird for these viruses!
When it comes to completely unpatched machines, I would agree 100%.
John.
(snipped)
Virtually never. The principal problem with OE is its lack of security. Yes, there are loads of patches. Something that has that many holes is suspect. Its basic problem is that it does too much.
Use a 'simple' email client and the security holes just aren't there. It can't accidentally execute a script if the execution environment isn't provided. I gave my elderly mother-in-law Eudora on her machine, which works fine for her. I removed OE completely. There may be exploits for Eudora (not that I've found any yet) but they are few and far between).
I guess the reason people don't suggest alternatives is that there are so many. Few, if any, suffer from the same security problems as OE.
But people AREN'T responsible - with a few exceptions. And who knows when one of the holes that hasn't been found yet will suddenly bite you? Or others in your address book? 'It works well for me' sounds a bit like 'I'm all right Jack'...
I criticise OE because it is a bad piece of software. It may be superficially reliable, but it has bugs that haven't been fixed in years (e.g. the pseudo attachment bug).
Yes, lots of people use it. Unfortunately it doesn't just affect them, but others too. I'd draw a loose parallel with people driving the 'old' Skodas. They were fine for limited applications, but at speed or heavily loaded they were positively dangerous, IMO. Perhaps you just do the equivalent of pottering round the town on OE, and you haven't been seriously targeted by any exploits - in which case the OE 'Skoda' is fine for the moment.
Same here, with ProNews/2! But I started over 20 years ago with 'rn'...
In message , nightjar wrote
Is this an advantage? Allowing any third party to automatically update your software is foolish.
Mary, you implied in an earlier post that MS was succesful because people used it. It has nothing to do then with the fact that MS appears to force pc makers to install windows by offering it virtually free to them and threatening to remove business if they attempt to offer pc's without an OS or sell them with Linux on ?
Dave
System time has nothing to do with newsreaders anyway.
Tony Hogarty wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@tjhpropertygarbage.co.uk:
Would be interested to know what others here prefer and why!
Xnews - small and excellent, but on-line only.
Others that have been commended are Free Agent and Gravity.
I've tried them and come back to Xnews.
All freeware, of course!
mike
No doubt you bought Betamax too, or would have if you are too young to recall it.
Colin Bignell
"nightjar .uk.com>"
He probably did or would have done, seeing that Betamax was far in-excess a better format than VHS could ever hope to be...
Some of us are still using a varient of rn....
(moved to trn and now use strn :))
Darren
nightjar No doubt you bought Betamax too, or would have if you are too young to
Somewhat ironic comaprison, since Betamax was technically far superior to VHS ;)
Lee
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