On Wed, 2003-07-23 at 01:51, Denise Williams wrote: > why is it best to not use HTML email?? I don't quite understand what happens > when I click to have HTML on or off. TIA
There is nothing inherently bad about HTML email per se, but the problem is that once you start with it, all manner of other things start to happen. Firstly, HTML allows you to link to external objects, which then allow a spammer to track which emails were actually viewed and when. Then, because you're encoding all kinds of other stuff inside a HTML page, a simple message can take up five or more times the space an equivalent text-only message takes. Mail programmes sometimes use their own method of displaying HTML - Eudora for example - which is not always the same as a web-browser would display it. HTML allows for JavaScript, so if a sender is allowed to send HTML email, they need to also allow for JavaScript, which opens up a whole can of worms in terms of malicious behaviour. On a more esoteric path, if you allow active content in an email message, you open yourself up to other active content which can then facilitate email virus propagation. The main reason stated for sending HTML email is "But I want to make my email look pretty/corporate/formatted/designed." - Having just read the preceding paragraphs, you can understand that this does not actually succeed, because HTML is not meant - nor was it ever - to actually accomplish this. So, how do you then achieve the stated reasons? Send an attachment. Let me say that again. If you want to send pretty email, send an attachment. Of course if you want to be bandwidth friendly - given that recipients pay for receiving email - more bytes = more dollars - you'd be an even better email citizen if you sent attachments only if requested by the recipient and sent URLs to the information in *all* other cases. But then, some people don't have access to a web-server to put content on, so people can actually get the attachment via the web. (Although 99% of Internet accounts in Australia do in fact come with more or less web-space.) So, hope this helps, Onno Benschop Connected via Optus B3 from S33:37'33" - E115:07'30" (Dunsborough, WA) -- ()/)/)() ..ASCII for Onno.. |>>? ..EBCDIC for Onno.. --- -. -. --- ..Morse for Onno.. Proudly supported by Skipper Trucks, Highway1, Concept AV, Sony Central, Dalcon ITmaze - ABN: 56 178 057 063 - ph: 04 1219 8888 - onno at itmaze dot com dot au
