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MS just wants to sell more Word licenses.

HTML has no place in email

I'm running outlook 2007 and I can't say that I've noticed a single difference in how HTML emails show when I read them.

I don't have IE 7 installed, still 6 but I don't think this makes a difference in how outlook  runs.

Good.  Email with images and other fluff in them pisses me off. HTML in email is a total waste of bandwidth.

-mark

reece_james wrote:

I wish MS went back 30 years and stayed there.

This is an interesting move and actually a good one. I'm starting to appreciate plain text more and more. Especially until email and web pages are redesigned for the next 50 years...

Though I prefer plain text, this move is like emptying your house to prevent thieves. There's no harm in allowing styles, the harm is when the email has embedded files like gif attachments, css file, or something that's on a remote server and can be used to track down whether the email address is valid or when/if the recipient open the email.

An email client should give users a choice to display html or not, not forcing them to read in html or plain text.

Though I find that most HTML or otherwise wastefully large e-mails are junk mail, it makes the file no smaller when it is sent or recieved just because it DISPLAYS it in a strange way.

There's no reason to prevent something from showing up, afaik. And I suppose that most e-mail apps allow you to view everything you get in plain text, right? I've never tried it, but I think my friend does that and he says it works well for him.

test wrote:

:snip:
And mail is still my favourite email client.

are we surprised?

People still use outlook and IE for that matter?

I like html in emails.   why wouldn't ms just disable html as a default and then if you wanted to view it you could turn it on.  chances are most windows users would leave it the way ms defaulted it anyway.

Donkey Butter wrote:

I like html in emails.   why wouldn't ms just disable html as a default and then if you wanted to view it you could turn it on.  chances are most windows users would leave it the way ms defaulted it anyway.

Yeah I don't get it, they basically do this now anyway.

in outlook 2007 by default images etc. will not show up in an HTML email until you specifically allow it.

HTML, Flash, email all suck. Really, really, really suck. They were never designed for the current makeup of the web and are going to have to be replaced/updated in the future. I'll be betting on google making the move towards a better web.

ScifiterX wrote:

Then I definitely feel they are going in the wrong direction then. Ideally a company should increase or maintain potential user capability and convenience while being maintaining security. If a user then does something to loosen their security for the sake of convenience it's their responsibility. Being upfront and honest in what certain changes entail in terms of convenience and security only helps matters.
For instance

[ ] Text: Decreases the risk of being compromised by malicious emails but may cause incompatibles in how certain types of emails are displayed and handled
[ ] HTML: Increases the risk of being compromised by malicious emails but  displays and handles certain types of emails more effectively

Bah - plain text email is plenty consistent, except for stupid word wrap behavior. We could have had a standard behavior in place 20 years ago, but somebody dropped that ball.

HTML just makes it look prettier. It's certainly no more consistent.

I personally think Wordpad/TextEdit should be used as email rendering engines. Italics/bold and the odd picture or two is nice. If you want people to see your web site, email them a url.