"Gene Kearns" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 07 Feb 2004 18:21:01 GMT, "Clams Canino"
wrote:

What's the advantage to an aftermarket newsreader? A perfectly good one
came free with my Windows.



Here are three reasons (concerning OE) borrowed from a mailing list:

I'm not a shill for MS, but:

1) It's probably the main virus vector on the net;

The only way I can see that it's a virus vector is that when installed, it's
set to automatically harvest the email address of everyone you reply to.
Easy to shut off, but most people don't read the instructions. This isn't a
design problem, although MS could change this default easily if their people
got their heads outta their asses.

2) It's demonstrably broken in several ways, violating several RFCs
and a lot of "custom and practice" (practically enforcing top-posting
is the biggest problem, but it also doesn't do MIME properly and
encourages unsafe behaviour w.r.t. attachments)

Top posting? It doesn't offer the option of top or bottom posting like
Netscape/Mozilla, but it's easy enough to post correctly if you take the
time to touch that obscure down arrow key. :-) As far as attachments, the
latest versions of OE shut off attachment viewing by default. You can't
touch them unless you intentionally go into options and flip a switch. This
issue probably generates more questions than any other in the MS newsgroups.