Better email programs than what installs with Windows 98 -- was: ...bcc
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Windows 98 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by gewg_
(3939 messages posted)
gewg_ wrote:
||Yeech. The WORST email program ever created--certainly the LEAST SECURE.
Ms. Eagle wrote:
|What a lovely greeting, gewg_. 
Well, it doesn't get said *nearly* enough.
Folks who are still using M$ products--ESPECIALLY those using Win9x--
should be constantly reminded / made aware
that the online products that M$ produces
are the source of the VAST majority of the infections acquired by computer users.
Folks that use Unix-based systems (e.g. OS X, Linux, BSD, Solaris,...)
have 0.00000001% of the malware problems that Windoze users do.[1]
cache of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_computer_viruses
...and even those who still use Windoze but use *online apps* OTHER THAN M$'s,
suffer MUCH less than their still-TOTALLY-mired-in-M$ brethren.
Of course, the main threat comes from Internet Exploder
(M$'s highly-insecure non-standards-compliant Web browser
--which professional Web developers despise)
and, of course, the versions that will work under Win9x are the WORST of that lot.
IE appears on EVERY list of the world's WORST software,
for example this one.
(With its wide proliferation and corresponding swath of damage,
I don't understand why IE isn't scored WORSE on that list than #8.)
The **biggest** problem with Outbreaks In Excess
is its bindings to Internet Exploder to render HTML.
Once that happens (and it happens for MANY things
that folks wouldn't think requires using a browser),
you have an open wound waiting to be infected.
...and with IE being deeply integrated into Windoze
(without due consideration for the security implications),
THE WHOLE COMPUTER is vulnerable.
There are also other security flaws within Outbreaks In Excess.
THOSE WILL **NEVER** BE FIXED EITHER
--especially not for those versions that will run under Win9x.
OTOH, there are zero-cost
replacements for the M$ apps
which are MUCH more
secure than any of the M$ stuff
--again, ESPECIALLY stuff that will run under Win9x.
There are 2 widely-used suites,
either of which will replace BOTH of those dangerous M$ apps.
http://www.seamonkey-project.org[2]
http://www.opera.com/download/index.dml?platform=windows
These will easily import your data from your old apps
and you can pick up right where you left off.
There are also individual apps to replace Internet Exploder
cache of http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all-older.html
and to replace Outbreaks In Excess
cache of http://www.mozillamessaging.com/thunderbird/all.html
Again, these will easily import your data from your old app.
NOTE: I have linked to the OLD versions of those Mozilla apps
because Firefox 3 and Thunderbird 3 (the most-recent versions)
will NOT work under Windows 98.
(Well, not without some additional third-party OS tweaks.)
All of these apps are under **active** development
and QUICKLY receive security dates after any flaws are found.
There are also NUMEROUS 21st-Century enhancements that make those a joy.
...and that is far from the full list of email apps that will run under Windows 98:
cache of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-mail_clients#General
(For more details, scroll down to the Operating System Support section.)
[1] ...and the old "High-profile" vs "Security Through Obscurity" claim
for why M$ products are so much less secure than non-M$ software
has been debunked time and again via exemplars:
The Apache web server software is the most-used Web server software
and the number of exploits against it
are DWARFED by the number of exploits against IIS
(Microsoft's Internet Information Server software).
The Berkely Internet Name Daemon is the most-used DNS server software
and, again, the number of exploits against BIND
are DWARFED by the number of exploits against Microsoft's DNS software.
http://google.com/search?q=site:us-cert.gov+Exploits+Apache+OR+BIND
The problem with Microsoft products is that they are DEFECTIVE BY DESIGN.
I should also mention that both of those most-popular apps are Free Software
and that having their source code freely available to hack
*doesn't* adversely affect their security in the real world.
[2] SeaMonkey also offers a chat client which can *optionally* be installed
and an HTML editor that's in there as a bonus (while adding no real bloat).
- Written in response to:
- re: How blind is bcc? (Ms. Eagle: Monday, April 20, 2009 at 8:28 pm)
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