Wow, I'm surprised by the number of Wilders members who use html in email. I expected people here to be more savvy. This is a classic way for spammers to get your email address. They send email to addresses that they guess, but don't know if they're real. When you open the email, content like images are loaded from links to third party servers (the image and graphics content is almost never actually part of the email, it's just a link to a server). The links include information about the email address, so when the connection is made to the remote server, the spammer now has confirmation that your email address is real. Voila, you have voluntarily signed yourself up for more spam. Obviously, as others have noted, this type of technique is also used by non spammers for marketing tracking purposes. There's just no good reason to enable html by default. Almost all webmail services and email client software have a feature where you can just click a button to load html content, if you want to see it. This way you can load content for trusted users and block everything else. It's easy.
Oh, what is the default view that doesn't load content like images or render as plain text called? This thread isn't even about defaults in the first place, just which view you prefer.
That's true, but you are missing the point. Plain Text is referring to emails which are sent using just plain text and no HTML at all. An HTML email with the images not loaded by default is still an HTML email.
No that's actually not what the OP says. The original post of this thread asks (my bold): That's send or receive. Obviously you have no control over how people send you emails, so if you prefer to receive emails as plain text that has nothing to do with whether the email was sent as html. Actually, I believe most email systems if they are set to send email as html also include a plain text version so that if the recipient sets their email client to display emails as plain text, it will have a plain text version to display. (That is, the email client doesn't display all the html code in plain text, it renders a different plain version of the email. So you're incorrect when you say that an html email without the images loaded is still an html email.) So given that the question was about how one prefers to receive (and not just send) emails, my statement was exactly on the topic of this thread. I prefer to receive email as plain text (or really display received emails as plain text) because it defeats many tracking and spam technologies. So I stated my preference and I explained my resason for it. And then I expressed surprise that in a security forum it seemed like at least half of the people who responded to this thread don't actually understand the security and privacy risks of willy nilly displaying all received email as html. * I'm not really sure what you're saying. But most (if not all) email clients have an option somewhere to set emails to display only as plain text. This includes webmail clients like Yahoo, Google, etc. If you use this setting, the email client will usually then display a button somewhere in a viewed email that says somethign like "load images," so you can see the pictures and graphics if you want to. As far as you second statement goes, the question is about which way one prefers to view emails. How I view emails that I receive is the default that I set. So it's the same thing. You statement about defaults vs. preferences is a distinction without a difference.
Wait . . . So if my e-mail does not displays images automatically its still HTML but it just doesnt load the images or its plain text? (I did understand Roger_M post but you guys are confusing me again)
Read roger_m's response, what you describe is exactly what I'm saying. Plain text is actually where you see the source code of the email. Defaults aren't always made from preference, just like the security reason you said. What if one likes to see eye-candy, but is forced to do without by default except from trusted senders? Edit - Found out there should be more than 2 options: 1. Source code 2. Plain text (no formatting) 3. Partial HTML (no images, but includes links, font styling, and other minor elements) 4. Full HTML Personally, I keep #3 as the email default, but would prefer #4 if trustworthy or #1 if suspicious.
I haven't found this to be consistent. The secretary of an organization I belong to sends HTML email, but I do not get plain text along with it in my Text email reader. This one includes an attachment: I can tell if the email is HTML because the envelope icon in the right pane under "Status" is coded yellow. To read the HTML message, I click the Opera Icon which opens as a HTML file in my Temp directory: Most HTML emails I receive display this way in my email Reader. I found one that does include the message in plain text in the body, along with the Opera icon to display it in HTML. It also includes an attachment: regards, ---- rich
That's how I have Thunderbird set up; it blocks remote content by default and I enable only where I see fit. The client is also AppArmor-enforced.
Yes, I think some email clients have settings to not display images from third party servers automatically, but the rest of the content could still be html and you would see the html formatting properly displayed, minus the images and graphics (which can look kind of junky and weird). * I don't think so. He was saying 1) that this only has to do with how emails are sent, not displayed, which is incorrect 2) and he was talking about html emails without images, which is different from a pure plain text display of an email, since it can still include the display of other formatting. That said (on second thought), it is true that you can display an html message as html, but just without the images. But you can also display an html message as plain text, which gets rid of all html formatting, and that's something different. And the OP's post did ask about "plain text" vs "full html" email (look at the subject heading of the thread). But honestly at this point I'm not sure what the OP actually meant by "plain text." "Full html" seems to mean displaying the images and everything. But with "plain text" perhaps the OP did mean html, but just without the images (i.e text and formatting, but no graphics and images). But there is also such a thing, as I say, as a plain text display of emails, which is different from html without the images and which is also different from displaying all of the source code. And since that's what plain text is, I assumed that what the OP meant when he wrote "plain text." When I used the word "default" in my initial post, I meant how one set their email client to display messages by default (which is exactly the same thing as what one's display preferences are--"preferences" in the sense of "go into the preferences and change the setting to x"). I did not mean how the settings come by default out of the box, before one changes them to one's own preferences. And I also did not mean "preferences" in the sense of how one would like things to be, but not necessarily how one has configured the settings in their email client. So I think you're using the word "preference" in a different sense than I am, hence the confusion. I don't understand where the concern comes from that one would be forced not to see messages in html, if one wants to. Just set your email client however you want. No one's being forced into anything. But maybe I'm not understanding what you're saying again. I think clearly it depends on the email client and they do not all have all the same options. I can't see why one would want to view the source code directly, just for regular email use. 3 is probably pretty safe, but you could accidentally click on a link and cause something that you don't want to happen. I also think once you've opted for 3, it makes many html messages look so funky, you may as well do 2. (I honestly could care less about and never miss the eye candy.) I can understand preferring 4, but there's no question that it's a bad idea from a security and privacy standpoint. If one wants to confirm one's email address to every spammer and phisher out there, just by opening an email and doing nothing else, as well as (I think) opening oneself up to javascript exploits, then go for it. * @Rmus I can't really see the differences in the email images that you posted. They kind of all look the same to me. It seems odd to me that the secretary is sending html emails that do not also include the plain text. I could be wrong, but as I said, I think most email clients by default send both html and plain text together. Did the secretary really dig deep into the settings and disable that? I can tell you that I often look at email in a good old fashioned shell account, using Pine, and given that this is a pure text-based command line interface, there is no way to display html at all. In this system I have never once had an email displayed as the written out html code (though I assume most of the email I'm sent is html). What I see is text, links displayed at the full written out link, sometimes some ascii rendered formatting, and that's it. So somehow this system always manages to render emails as pure plain text and never html code. This makes me suspect that the weirdness you're noticing has to do with your email client, not how the emails were sent. But I don't really know.
I use HTML for my mail in my mail client and also when reading and writing it in browser. I don't give up my personal email to subscribe for things. I have a special one for that purpose. Google has great spam filter and I see spam message in my inbox maybe few times a year. So, I don't see much security/privacy issues by using HTML. I just like to see message the way sender created it
@cb474: Indeed the terminology is confusing (and lacking), which is why I think there should more specific options. My point was that client default isn't necessarily what one prefers all the time, even if they set it up themselves. #3 is what most webmail use by default, and they warn you about loading content like images and clicking links unless it's from a trusted sender.
The first shows an HTML email with no plain text displayed; just the icon to click to view the message. Then I show the message when I click on the icon -- the message displays in my browser. The third shows an HTML email where the message is displayed in plain text, with the icon at the bottom to view the HTML. I have no idea. Looking at the Header, I see she uses webmail.peoplepc. It doesn't bother me -- I just click to open the message and that's that. Years ago, I started using a text-base email Reader because of the prevalence of HTML email spam, and often malicious coding. Here is one from 7 years ago: Note that images in the HTML message have to be loaded manually, so I can read the message w/o the images displaying, if I want to, which is what I did in those days when testing these things. I would look at the code of each image separately. Curiously, I don't get these types of messages anymore. I don't know if it's because email is no longer used much for spam, or if it's because about 5 years ago my ISP set up new software with very strong filters. I rarely get any spam -- a few a month at the most. ---- rich
Yes, I agree that how one sets one's system up for security reasons, may not be what one prefers if there were no mitigating issues like like spam, etc. Although I honestly think I do prefer the complete plain text of my shell account email system, to some other webmail systems I used for other email addresses. I just don't need all the graphics, formatting, images, etc. I did think that most webmail defaults to full html, not html minus images. At least, that's been my experience. Perhaps they've changed their systems for new accounts these days. * Rest assured, spam is alive and well. I'm surprised you get so little. Even with email addresses I try to be super careful with, sooner or late the spam starts pouring in. And for most people I know, this is their experience. * I assume you don't enable html in your other email for subscription purposes, etc. I suppose it may be reasonable to leave on html on for an email address where you only receive personal email from trusted people. But I wonder if people could still inadvertently forward you email with malicious html in it. No matter how careful one is oneself, it's hard to control what other people do. And most people pay absolutely zero attention to these sorts of things.
I have set up Gmail account for other purposes and I check my email in sandboxed browser, so I don't have to be afraid of malicious content that I could get through email. I read and compose my personal email in Outlook and am using Gmail account also. It doesn't allow sending executable attachments and spam almost never reaches my inbox. If I would ever get malicious mail with links to malware, those links would be opened in sandboxed browser. I don't remember if I ever got malicious email till now. But as you said - you can't control what other people do.
There's malicious and then they're just tracking email. I don't think you can avoid the tracking, as long as you have html enabled. But in a "spam" Gmail account, perhaps it doesn't matter. In any case, perhaps very other person who responsed to this poll is as careful as you are. But it seems unlikley. So I remain surprised that more than half of the people, who responded to the poll in a security forum, go ahead and use full html in their email, apparently unaware of the problems.
