Don,

Very good Don.  Your Incredimail analysis is right on. Using programs like
this is like leaving your front door wide open and inviting anyone in. I
have told some of my email friends about the dangers. Incidentally, it is a
very cute program but that's not enough to recommend it. There are some
attractive and benign free "faces" for your email other than Incredimail if
you don't mind the increased mail size and performance hit.

J. Dent


At 03:02 AM 3/5/2004, you wrote:
>Siva writes:
>
><<I have heard somewhere about this email program.>>
>
>I assume you mean "Incredimail".
>
>Definitely not recommended, for several reasons:
>
>1. Unless your friends specifically want it, it will soon drive them nuts.
>
>2. It is very inefficient, because it sends in formatted text, which means
>the size of your emails will be many times larger than plain text, by about
>10-20 times or more. Anyone on dialup connection will curse you for slowing
>their email downloads. Many, like myself, will probably have filters set to
>block anything with an Incredimail signature. Thus your emails may not be
>received unless you know that your correspondents are willing to accept them.
>
>3. It is generally considered not good netiquette to wastefully use
>netwaves in this fashion. Overuse could eventually slow down email traffic
>for all users. This may or may not be a myth.
>
>4. Most importantly, Incredimail is not as benign as it appears. It
>secretly loads a sort of trojan into your computer, and, more evil, also
>loads the same trojan into the computers of everyone who accepts these
>emails. The purpose of this trojan is unknown, but there are strong
>suspicions that it sends out information from your computer to the owners
>of this software for their commercial purposes---ie your address and
>possibly other personal information will likely be sold to spamming lists.
>That's the kindest interpretation. The device is capable of more sinister
>purposes, though there's no evidence that it is put to any such use. The
>fact that Incredimail will not, as far as I'm aware, divulge any
>information as to the purpose of this device, would lead me to suspect the
>worst.
>
>This program is promoted without full disclosure of this information. This,
>to me and I think to most of us, is totally indefensible.
>
>Most users of this software are unaware of the potential damage they may be
>doing to their own and their friends' computers.
>
>A pity, because superficially it is a great piece of software.
>Unfortunately, there's often a downside to most freebies. That's fair
>enough.  But in this case, for most of us, the downside is far greater than
>the  benefits.
>
>5. However, if you have a group of associates who enjoy this creative type
>of email (and many do), as long as you are all fully aware of the potential
>downsides, then use it by all means. I have a few friends who love it, and
>they don't seem to have come to any great harm. I'd like to see how much
>spam they get, though.
>
>6. I think you'd find, incidentally, that any use of Incredimail on this or
>any other forum, would be blocked.
>
>7. As far as I know, it is not a substitute for OE, but merely an add-on.
>It is not, I think, a stand-alone  emailer. I could be wrong about that,
>never having tried it.
>
>Don Penlington
>
>
>
>
>
> From the beach at Surfers Paradise.
>http://www.geocities.com/donaldpen/
>for sunny Queensland photos, fractal art, free computer tutorials, and more.
>(Sorry, this site is down at the moment).
>
>               The NOSPIN Group Promotions is now offering
>              Mandrake Linux or Red Hat Linux CD sets along
>             with the OpenOffice CD...  at a great price!!!
>             http://freepctech.com/goodies/promotions.shtml

                         PCSOFT's List Owner's:
                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
                       Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>