Registered: May 2000
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Posts: 163

What's The Problem With HTML Email?

I've heard various folks allude to a dislike of HTML email. What's the downside of it?

TIA

Registered: Jul 2002
Location: Austin
Posts: 13

HTML Mail - Just Say NO

1. Can be used to automatically identify receipt by including a 1x1 pixel image that references the sender's site. Clever spammers have a different clear image for each piece of email, thereby validating all the email sent. This can be turned off only by turning off preview, which in turn creates a risk of other malicious code.

2. Often 25K-50K is used to send 100 bytes of text, the rest being images and other crap. At 9600 baud, 50K takes almost a minute to download. That is a minute used to download what is often spam. Cure: put a 2K max preview. But that often requires going back for the rest of a legitimate message.

3. It can be used to run malicious code. Whether a system is protected against it varies in the cat and mouse way, but my phone is never going to have state-of-the-art protection.

4. It is unnecessary. Send a text email message, and insert a hyperlink to the posted html code. That lets the recipient decide if they want the pictures and other html code now or later or never.

Registered: Jan 2001
Location:
Posts: 6

Plus, not every e-mail client supports it. You send a HTML e-mail to a person who can't read HTML e-mail, and all they get is the HTML source...which is rather hard to read, even if you do know HTML.