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





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