Comments on: Four essential tweaks keep Outlook simple and safe

Send and receive mail as plain text, block new-mail pop-up alerts, close the reading pane, and create a custom contacts view.

[Penguinisto]

Hell, I did mine in one step @ home:

Get Thunderbird. ;)

@ Work, I use Evolution.

No problems keeping either one safe, and they're pretty simple...

[SVContrarian]

Umm... Essential? That's a bit of an overstatement, don't you think?

Text only email? No formatting? Seems kind of extreme. How about C-Net goes back to web pages with just text! That would be more secure too. Just abysmally awful to look at.

I'm always surprised at the wierd ways people like to configure their systems. Rock on. But calling it essential to turn off your reading pane?

Get real. Maybe we should all go back to PROFS! That's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROFS for those under 30. A better title would be "Four Quirky Ways I like to read my email, and think others should work like me."

[doreilly]

As I mentioned in the posting, I like to clear as much desktop space for my inbox as possible. I think other people prefer this view as well. You like the reading pane? It's all yours. You don't like plain text? You need HTML mail to express yourself? I behind you 100 percent. Do I expect everyone to do things the way I do? C'mon! They're "essential" to me; how you feel about them is up to you. But thanks for sharing.

Dennis

[DoesWhat]

Your previous article, "View HTML mail from trusted senders, plain text from others" showed how to do exactly that, therefore improving the safety of your machine (if sacrificing the user experience quality slightly). However, this article provides absolutely no ways of improving safety, neither is it in anyway essential.

What benefit is there from switching outgoing messages to plain text?

[doreilly]

Maybe you're doing your recipients a favor by reducing the load on their mail client. Bad things can be delivered via HTML mail. By sending plain-text messages, you ensure that your mail holds no surprises for the recipient.

Dennis