This is a BigCo vs LittleCo story. A few years ago there were a bunch of companies and organizations developing Email and New readers. They were developing into some nice, powerful but easy to use tools. And then one day, both Netscape and Microsoft started giving away email/news readers with their browser. This helped to grow the population of email users rapidly. This was no bad thing but it also took the state of the art several steps backwards. And it pretty much wiped out the market for commercial development of these tools. It wouldn't be so bad except that the early free versions were terrible and although they've improved, they still have some awful flaws. This essay is a suggestion that maybe we should just stop using them and support the independents.
So what's wrong with Outlook Express, Outlook, Netscape and Opera? Maybe I shouldn't include Netscape and Opera, as my main gripe is with MS, but they also bundle mail/news with their browser, thus also making life hard for the independent developer.
Anyway, just how many ways can I find to criticise MS Email readers?
Viruses
The fastest spreading viruses have been built on top of MS email readers and the way they handle attachments. You're positively encouraged to open attachments by "running them". There's no option to quarantine them or inspect them first. We even have the situation where html email is displayed and executed just by looking at the email. This opens up the possibility for embedded javascript and malicious code to get into the machine without the user really doing anything. It's all very well to say that you should use a virus checker and keep it up to date, but why should you have to? Isn't it about time that MS modified their UI so that virus spread was inhibited, rather than promoted?
Netiquette
There's a whole set of netiquette that has grown up around email and news. Things like properly quoting with ">" and attributions; replying at the bottom; trimming quotes; using plain text and so on. In almost every case, MS Email readers positively encourage you to break this. They default to html. They don't attribute quoted text correctly. They discourage you from editing and deleting quoted text if it's not relevant. All this makes it awkward for MS Email users to mingle with people who understand the merits of netiquette. The most ironic aspect of this is that the Microsoft Newsgroups recommend that posters follow these rules when they're own tools make it pretty hard.
Function
Let's just take a few areas. Every so often people complain about mailing lists because they don't properly thread the messages. But the email RFC standards define several headers specifically designed to support them. MS don't use them and try to thread on subject line. In fact, despite the huge number of mailing lists, there is no explicit support in MS email readers for grouping and threading mailing list output.
When a message has come from a mailing list, they make no attempt to ask you if you want to reply to the list or to the individual. They make no attempt to help you start a new thread, so threads drift in topic.
Then there's signatures. Outlook Express apparently has support for signatures except it's not quite sure when to add the signature seperator and it makes no attempt to use the signature seperator to remove them in quoted replies.
And then there's the bugs and the lack of standards compliance.
Backend
Amazingly, considering that MS wrote their own file store, all your emails are stored in plain text, uncompressed and un-encrypted. They don't even have a decent garbage collection routine and deleted emails are simply flagged. So the files have to be compacted every so often. And to do this they have to be copied record by record. And they get big so you can need lots of free space to do this. Come on guys, this is computer science 101. The user really shouldn't have to know about this stuff.
And once all your emails are in their system, your data belongs to them. You can import from most email readers, but you can only export to MS owned ones.
And so on.
Now, I use a fairly weird email/news reader called Turnpike for all these reasons and many more. With a small amount of set up, it treats mailing lists as newsgroups. Proper threading using the references headers, options to reply to list or sender, *Fully* rfc compliant, expiry of old messages, bursts digests, aware of .sig separators, full regex message rules, etc etc. Other alternatives such as Eudora, Free Agent, Pegasus still survive and all have developed similar function. Some of them are even free.
So "Just say no" to MS Email readers and go and buy a decent tool. It will take a period of adjustment to get used to, but you'll save time and effort. Now these days, the idea of paying for software that can also be obtained for free is hard to understand. But think about this. How many hours a day do you use an email client? And you're prepared to put up with the crappy freebie that came with the Operating System? If you were a professional gardener, would you use the cheapest tools from Walmart? Many people have said that email is the killer app of the internet and it's probably the most widely used non web internet function. Doesn't it make sense to get a professional, industrial strength tool for this?
So here's the campaign. "Help Stamp Out MS Email Readers"
It may be tilting at windmills but you know it makes sense.
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So what's wrong with Outlook Express, Outlook, Netscape and Opera? Maybe I shouldn't include Netscape and Opera, as my main gripe is with MS, but they also bundle mail/news with their browser, thus also making life hard for the independent developer.
Anyway, just how many ways can I find to criticise MS Email readers?
Viruses
The fastest spreading viruses have been built on top of MS email readers and the way they handle attachments. You're positively encouraged to open attachments by "running them". There's no option to quarantine them or inspect them first. We even have the situation where html email is displayed and executed just by looking at the email. This opens up the possibility for embedded javascript and malicious code to get into the machine without the user really doing anything. It's all very well to say that you should use a virus checker and keep it up to date, but why should you have to? Isn't it about time that MS modified their UI so that virus spread was inhibited, rather than promoted?
Netiquette
There's a whole set of netiquette that has grown up around email and news. Things like properly quoting with ">" and attributions; replying at the bottom; trimming quotes; using plain text and so on. In almost every case, MS Email readers positively encourage you to break this. They default to html. They don't attribute quoted text correctly. They discourage you from editing and deleting quoted text if it's not relevant. All this makes it awkward for MS Email users to mingle with people who understand the merits of netiquette. The most ironic aspect of this is that the Microsoft Newsgroups recommend that posters follow these rules when they're own tools make it pretty hard.
Function
Let's just take a few areas. Every so often people complain about mailing lists because they don't properly thread the messages. But the email RFC standards define several headers specifically designed to support them. MS don't use them and try to thread on subject line. In fact, despite the huge number of mailing lists, there is no explicit support in MS email readers for grouping and threading mailing list output.
When a message has come from a mailing list, they make no attempt to ask you if you want to reply to the list or to the individual. They make no attempt to help you start a new thread, so threads drift in topic.
Then there's signatures. Outlook Express apparently has support for signatures except it's not quite sure when to add the signature seperator and it makes no attempt to use the signature seperator to remove them in quoted replies.
And then there's the bugs and the lack of standards compliance.
Backend
Amazingly, considering that MS wrote their own file store, all your emails are stored in plain text, uncompressed and un-encrypted. They don't even have a decent garbage collection routine and deleted emails are simply flagged. So the files have to be compacted every so often. And to do this they have to be copied record by record. And they get big so you can need lots of free space to do this. Come on guys, this is computer science 101. The user really shouldn't have to know about this stuff.
And once all your emails are in their system, your data belongs to them. You can import from most email readers, but you can only export to MS owned ones.
And so on.
Now, I use a fairly weird email/news reader called Turnpike for all these reasons and many more. With a small amount of set up, it treats mailing lists as newsgroups. Proper threading using the references headers, options to reply to list or sender, *Fully* rfc compliant, expiry of old messages, bursts digests, aware of .sig separators, full regex message rules, etc etc. Other alternatives such as Eudora, Free Agent, Pegasus still survive and all have developed similar function. Some of them are even free.
So "Just say no" to MS Email readers and go and buy a decent tool. It will take a period of adjustment to get used to, but you'll save time and effort. Now these days, the idea of paying for software that can also be obtained for free is hard to understand. But think about this. How many hours a day do you use an email client? And you're prepared to put up with the crappy freebie that came with the Operating System? If you were a professional gardener, would you use the cheapest tools from Walmart? Many people have said that email is the killer app of the internet and it's probably the most widely used non web internet function. Doesn't it make sense to get a professional, industrial strength tool for this?
So here's the campaign. "Help Stamp Out MS Email Readers"
It may be tilting at windmills but you know it makes sense.
[ << Weblogs for Business ] [ P2PJ - A new form of Journalism? >> ]
[ 0 comments ] [ G ] [ # ]