Virus question

[illflem]

When there is a virus floating around through e-mail they say don't open letters that say such n'such. I use Outlook Express and when I check the mail it ends up opening one of the recieved letters,can this be a problem or is there a way around it?

 

[Don D]

Go to your inbox. At the top it says "From, Subject, Received. You can click on "Received" to control if your new mail goes to the top, or to the bottom.
It only automatically opens mail that appears on top. If you set it so your new mail goes to the bottom and always leave at least one opened message in the inbox, your problem should be solved.

 

[illflem]

Don, your method with Outlook doesn't work,in order to delete mail you have to select it and when you do it opens. Could MS have designed it that way so you have to buy virus filters?

 

[Bryan Brenneman]

If I'm not mistaken, you would need to turn off preview pane to eliminate "opening" of received letters. Preview pane is very nice but I guess it does create this issue #ad
To turn it off, Menu item View, Layout... , uncheck show preview pane.
This seems to be more of an issue now since more viruses are using script nowadays rather than just attachments. I know of three people who were just bitten by viruses this week when they tried to delete the mail without opening it. #ad

 

[Joe G.]

I use Netscape instead of Outlook so my method might not work. There are always some messages in my inbox that I haven't done anything with yet. I also have a dummy test message to send to myself. If I see a message in my inbox that I suspect I send myself the dummy test message so that insures that I have a "last" message. After I have read all the messages I want I click on the message before the suspect and them SHIFT click on the dummy test message which should be after the suspect message. This will highlight all three messages and the only one open will be the first. This avoids clicking on the suspect message at all. Then I hit delete which deletes them all. If I really wanted to keep the first one I can always drag it from trash back to the inbox. One odd thing I have noticed about the recent "Hahaha" virus message that if I delete it it doesn't appear in trash. It just disappears. ??

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Joe George
Eureka, CA

'95 2500 CC auto 4X4,3. 54,Combo EGT/boost guage,custom switch panel,PacBrake,TST #5,BD valve body,Automatic motorhome steps on both sides,Foldacover hard bed cover,Cummins chrome kit,Black steel grill guard,Front hitch receiver

 

[illflem]

Bryan,thanks for that,I knew there must be a way. There's just so many options to explore that it's hard to find them all. Eliminating the preview pane also makes more room for Inbox messages. Thanks again.
Bill

Just noticed when I eliminated the preview pane that I now have to double click to open mail,I have my mouse set for single click and this is the first thing I've run into that requires a double. No big deal.

[This message has been edited by illflem (edited 01-21-2001). ]

 

[Bryan Brenneman]

Joe,
 I just did what you stated in OE 5. 5 It doesn't seem to work in it. What seems to happen is OE will open the last one you clicked or highlighted using arrow keys.
 It was the HaHaHa virus that got the people I referred to. It is a worm and will send itself to people in the address book. I was sent the mail, however I use IMAP based mail and download headers only. Therefore I never actually got the message body which kept me from getting the bug.
 OE has some decent filters for deleting mail based on sender or subject line and others, but I don't bother with them. Actually the filters don't work on IMAP anyway.
 For anyone interested what the HaHaHa virus is, McCaffe has an explanation of it. Read about it here.

 

[Bryan Brenneman]

One other thing I would like to add. If you get real serious and want to avoid html mail all together, check the properties of the mail before you open it. Right click the message, Properties, Details tab, and then usually near the bottom, there is an entry "Content-Type:". If it is not "plain text" then it is html. If you fear the possibilities of html, delete it.
I once saw a signature on a discussion board that said "Don't send me HaTeMaiL. " I didn't understand that right away, but I eventually figured out what he was talking about (HTML) #ad


P. S. If anyone sees anything that I am mistaken on, please correct me.

 

[Bryan Brenneman]

Bill,
Three posts later and I finally got around to saying "You're Welcome".
You said about having so many inbox messages. If you want to, there is a good way to organize your old/read mail for archival purposes. Right click the message, and select either "Move to folder... " or "Copy to folder... " At that point you can create new folders, name them and put your read messages there. This makes it easier to find something when you want it. Here is a picture of the way I store my old mail. I put the important, read messages in the appropriate folder. <hr> #ad

 

[Joe G.]

Bryan,

That's why I send myself a dummy message to avoid clicking or anything else that might open a suspect message. So far, I haven't seen anything that affects Netscape. Maybe these virus idiots have a grudge again MicroSoft. The machine I use at work uses OE so I have some idea how it works. Of course, since I'm working on a contract at HP there is lot of anti-virus software in action on the servers and the individual machines. Once in a great while a virus sneaks thru anyway. I prefer NS over OE because of ease of use and it is not the primary target of viruses. The latest version of NS seems to be a POS (buggy as a bee hive) as far as I could tell from my first attempt at using it so I'm back using the older version. I may end up switching to IE/OE if NS doesn't get their act together soon.

 

[illflem]

Joe,you're right about the viruses being targeted at Microsoft. I've read that the MSN system is a real magnet for viruses. The best protection against viruses is to use a Mac,they rarely get hit. If you use IE very long you'll find it much better than NS. ,much more options,but it does take some getting used to. OE is by far the best mail program I've used.