The campaign to end HTML email
Friday, January 19th, 2007
Washington Post blogger Brian Krebs uses the recent release of a Windows security patch to fire up the campaign to end HTML email.
He reminds his readers 
that “viewing your e-mail in anything other than plain text mode is asking for trouble on a Windows computer.”
He then proceeds to list some of the reasons why HTML should be avoided, including better protection against phishing attacks, avoiding “spam touting graphic images from adult Web sites” and not seeing your own HTML emails end up in someone else’s spam folder. (See a much more comprehensive list of reasons on the Free Anti Spam web site.)
Instructions are provided on using plain text in Outlook 2003, Outlook Express, Thunderbird and Opera. These might be useful for Hawk Wings readers in a distressing work environment.
Mail.app users have at least three ways to deal with incoming HTML emails—see an earlier Hawk Wings post, “Viewing HTML messages in Apple Mail“).
I am a fan of the first, most brutal option myself, but I am also a realist. See further King Canute (Wikipedia ).
UPDATE: Nicholas takes a different view . “Arguing that email users should not have access to different fonts or colours is much like arguing that they should still be using the word processors of 1987 as well,” he suggests.
[Thanks, Michael]
Tags: Apple Mail, HTML, mail.app, Opera, outlook, outlook express, plain text, thunderbird, windows