I, like many other users, use Windows and Outlook, myself using Windows 2000 and
Outlook 2002. Unfortunately for us, some people who need to do better things to
do with their time, write viruses that infect flaws in Outlook Express/9x/200x,
basically taking advantage of the fact that Outlook displays an email message in HTML, if
the message is in HTML. Well now someone has developed a plug-in for Outlook 200x,
named NoHTML, that changes a HTML email to textual format that does not run
scripts or anything else that can be manipulated to infect your pc with a nasty
virus.
You can decline to send HTML messages, as any decent Netizen does; but you can't decline to receive them. No, that would be downright hostile to the spam establishment, and Microsoft knows better than tangle with one of the few industries which dwarfs it. |
However, some of us now have a nifty tool called NoHTML to disable HTML displays
in Outlook, thanks to Russ Cooper of NTBugtraq. In Outlook 2000, NoHTML
supposedly converts HTML to RTF. In Outlook 2002, it converts HTML to plain
text. Pretty neat.
In NT, 2K or XP, just install
the file (a DLL) in: Documents and Settings(user)Application
DataMicrosoftAddins. Finish the installation as described below, re-boot, and
all should be well.
If you're running 9x, you might try installing it in: WindowsApplication
DataMicrosoftAddInsWindowsLocal and/or in SettingsApplication
DataMicrosoftOutlook.
Finish the installation thus: within Outlook, go to Tools, Options, Other,
Advanced Options, COM Add-ins, Add. Find NoHTML.dll and select it. Re-boot.
Thus far it's worked for me with Outlook 2000 on 'XP and '98. I can hardly
describe the thrill of blocking scripts in Outlook for once in my life. In '98,
an HTML message's preview pane is blank, as is the whole message when opened
manually; in 'XP it all shows up as text, as it should.
If only more people would come up with ways around problems in Windows. Yes Windows is
not the perfect OS in the world, but it is main stream and most people tend to
like it and thus use it. I just wish more people, like Russ Cooper, would create
work-arounds (or better yet, fixes) to problems instead of taking advantage of
them as virus writers tend to do. It shows more maturity and a lot more skill as
I have said before, it is much easier to destroy than it is to create.
Source: The Register
