[RTTY] Re: email programs

Bill Turner w7ti@dslextreme.com
Tue, 27 Nov 2001 02:31:59 -0800


On Mon, 26 Nov 2001 20:51:23 -0800, Kok Chen wrote:

>I am so far, thankfully, relatively immune, by running a variant of Unix
>on a PowerPC machine.  I am even using M$ Entourage to read mail with.

_________________________________________________________

Another email reader that is immune to viruses is Agent by Forte, which
I use.  By design, it will not, by itself, allow any executable to run
unless you specifically launch it.  Also by design, it will not and can
not display HTML except as simple ASCII text.  Recent versions of HTML
are capable of launching malicious code entirely by themselves.  As most
folks know, HTML should never be used for email - only for web pages.

The people at Forte are very security conscious and have rejected
numerous requests over the years to "improve" Agent so it will do some
of the things Outlook Express is infamous for.

I've used Agent since the mid-90's and have never been infected yet,
even without an automatic virus scanning program.

There is a free version available at:  

http://www.forteinc.com/agent/freagent.htm

which has most of the features of the regular (paid) version.  I highly
recommend it for those wanting to replace Outlook Express.

73, Bill W7TI