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The specific instructions below are for Outlook
Express. If you use some other email client
or Web mail, these instructions can serve
as a guide, but you'll need to figure out
the specific details yourself.
Outlook Express settings
Note: Outlook Express 6.0 has improved security provisions compared to previous versions. It's a good
idea to upgrade to 6.0 first
(by upgrading
Internet Explorer, which includes
OE) before
going further.
- Disable the preview pane: This step is the most important and it's
simple. Some malicious messages are activated
the moment you view them in the preview pane.
You don't need to fully open them to infect
your computer. Go to Menu > View >
Layout... and uncheck the box for "Show preview pane". [illustrated instructions.] From now on, you'll now need to open messages
by "double-clicking" them in the
message list.
An alternative to closing the preview pane:
If you've upgraded to OE 6.0 and have applied
all the security updates you can set it to
read email as plain text. That's an excellent
way to neutralize malicious content. This
setting allows you to examine messages without
the hazard of activing malicious content.
You may need to temporarily reverse this
setting to read some messages that you receive
in HTML format though. Or you can save them
to your hard drive, and then open them with
your browser (IE). Just be sure you know they're good before
you do.
- Set Internet Explorer to use the "Restricted
Sites Zone": Click Tools > Options
> Security (tab) in the menu. Select "Restricted Sites Zone" and (if the option is offered) select
"Warn me when other applications try to send
email as me." [see Q291387 at Microsoft]
- You may also want to let OE help protect
you from dangerous attachments. Click Tools
> Options > Security (tab) in the menu.
Select "Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened
that could potentially be a virus." Once in a while, you may want to save
or open an attachment that IE 6.0 now considers
to be a hazardous file type. You'll need
to temporarily deselect the second option
in that case.
Other email clients
Courier is both more secure and easy to set
up than Outlook Express. See how to set up
tight security at the Courier page. This and most other alternative email clients offer better security provisions than Outlook
Express. They are not the target of as many
special attacks either, because they aren't
associated with the hated (a common tenet
of malcontents) Microsoft.
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