On Sat, 27 Sep 2003 09:23:19 GMT, "Harold & Susan Vordos"
wrote:


Twice now I have received one, which, once clicked on to delete,
automatically sends you to a porno web site.

[extracted from the header of your message]
X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1158

The first thing you need to do is get a different
mail/news-reader program. As far as I know Outlook
Express is the only such program that executes things
like links and executable attachments when you have
only looked at the message.

I recommend Forte' Agent, myself, but there a lot
of other good mail/news-reader programs out there
like Eudora and Pine (available in DOS, Windows,
and Macintosh versions, I think). They won't show
you e-mail that looks like a web page, but that
is what you are complaining about: e-mails that
contain dangerous material over which you have no
control.

The downside is that you won't have the integration
available in the MS Office Suite: no addressbook
that contains e-mail addresses, phone numbers and
snail-mail addresses for use by various programs.

I sure wish MS would make a plain ASCII mail and
news-reader that integrated with the rest of Office.
Then, they could offer the choice of what program
you use to read mail -- the Outlook type that runs
executable attachments or the plain ASCII that protects
you from the sort of thing you are complaining of.