Re: viruses run amuck

[Troy Miller <yort5thor at yahoo_com>]

On Sun, 2002-12-08 at 17:47, *r. gockley wrote:

> step two: if your email program automatically downloads attachments, MAKE
> IT STOP. this includes outlook's "preview" feature, i believe. make it so
> that nothing but the text of the email downloads to your computer unless
> you tell it to. turn off html email, too, i think (i.e if you have
> colors/formatting/pictures in your emails; there should be a way to force
> your email program to show "text only"). email - just plain ol' text email
> - can't hurt your computer. downloading attachments *can*. if you're
> suspicious about an attachment, then reply to the email and ask the sender
> what it is before you download it.  that way, if something gets past your
> virus scanning software, you still won't catch a virus.

One of the easiest things you can do is NOT USE OUTLOOK EXPRESS.  I'll
forgo my usual anti-M$ tirad and just say that most nasty things are
written mainly for OE, because that's what most people use.  Switching
to something like Mozilla[1] for both web browsing and email can save
you a lot of headache.

For example, Mozilla Mail has the option to not download any images in
your email unless you tell it to.  Same for the browser.  It's really
not much different than Internet Explorer/Outlook Express, and you'll
avoid a fair bunch of the virus scams out there.

However, that's not going to do it all.  Basic things like disabling
JavaScript and NOT clicking on attachments will do loads for you as
well.

http://www.mozilla.org

Troy, who just uses Linux ;)

[1] For you non-geeks out there, Mozilla is pretty much Netscape before
it becomes Netscape (ie, Netscape is based of Mozilla)
---------------
Unsubscribe by going to http://www.actwin.com/OtR/