I've been using Google Groups, but it has no filters.

I'm tired of sorting out the legitimate posts from the spam.

Can anyone recommend a good (preferably free) news reader that will
work with Windows Vista?

I'm not really a bit-head, so installation needs to be close to point
and click.

Thanks, and will be seeing you...

Old Guy

Old Guy wrote:
I've been using Google Groups, but it has no filters.

I'm tired of sorting out the legitimate posts from the spam.

Can anyone recommend a good (preferably free) news reader that will
work with Windows Vista?

I'm not really a bit-head, so installation needs to be close to
point
and click.

Thanks, and will be seeing you...

Windows Mail works fine (don't let the name fool you, it handles
USENET just fine) and it's included with Vista. There's a freeware
add-in called "OE-Quotefix"
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/ that addresses most
of the complaints (other than that "It's EEEVIILLLL") that people have
with it.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

I have been using Forte Agent for years. I would not say it is
neccessarily easy but once you get the basic setup it works pretty
well. I have posts saved for a long time that I think I might refer to
again.

On Thu, 3 Apr 2008 04:20:55 -0700 (PDT), Old Guy wrote:

I've been using Google Groups, but it has no filters.

I'm tired of sorting out the legitimate posts from the spam.

Can anyone recommend a good (preferably free) news reader that will
work with Windows Vista?

I'm not really a bit-head, so installation needs to be close to point
and click.

Thanks, and will be seeing you...

Old Guy

"Jim Behning"
I have been using Forte Agent for years. I would not say it is
neccessarily easy but once you get the basic setup it works pretty
well. I have posts saved for a long time that I think I might refer to
again.

I agree. Although I usually use Outlook for general email, like you I use
Agent 4.2 for all my uploading and downloading. It has a number of improved
features over the V1.9 that I was using previously.

Old Guy wrote:
I've been using Google Groups, but it has no filters.

I'm tired of sorting out the legitimate posts from the spam.

Can anyone recommend a good (preferably free) news reader that will
work with Windows Vista?

I'm not really a bit-head, so installation needs to be close to point
and click.

Thanks, and will be seeing you...

Years ago I would have said use Forte Free Agent, but it has been
discontinued. Probably your best bet is to use Thunderbird for both
usenet and mail.

Ironically, one of the first things you might want to do when you leave
Google Groups is filter out all posts from @google.com. That's where 90%
of the usenet spam is coming from these days.

Colin

On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:58:03 GMT, "Colin B."
wrote:

Old Guy wrote:
I've been using Google Groups, but it has no filters.

I'm tired of sorting out the legitimate posts from the spam.

Can anyone recommend a good (preferably free) news reader that will
work with Windows Vista?

I'm not really a bit-head, so installation needs to be close to point
and click.

Thanks, and will be seeing you...

Years ago I would have said use Forte Free Agent, but it has been
discontinued.

I'm using it as I type. Do you mean that the free version is not
available for new suscribers?

It does not, however, have filters in the free version.


Probably your best bet is to use Thunderbird for both
usenet and mail.

Ironically, one of the first things you might want to do when you leave
Google Groups is filter out all posts from @google.com. That's where 90%
of the usenet spam is coming from these days.

Colin

Just curious whets the matter with Outlook ? Its
already on your computer, It's free. It's easy and
it has filters.
Puff

"Old Guy" wrote in message
...
I've been using Google Groups, but it has no
filters.

I'm tired of sorting out the legitimate posts
from the spam.

Can anyone recommend a good (preferably free)
news reader that will
work with Windows Vista?

I'm not really a bit-head, so installation needs
to be close to point
and click.

Thanks, and will be seeing you...

Old Guy

Frank Boettcher wrote:
On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:58:03 GMT, "Colin B."
wrote:

Old Guy wrote:
I've been using Google Groups, but it has no filters.

I'm tired of sorting out the legitimate posts from the spam.

Can anyone recommend a good (preferably free) news reader that
will
work with Windows Vista?

I'm not really a bit-head, so installation needs to be close to
point and click.

Thanks, and will be seeing you...

Years ago I would have said use Forte Free Agent, but it has been
discontinued.

I'm using it as I type. Do you mean that the free version is not
available for new suscribers?

It does not, however, have filters in the free version.

There is no free version. It was discontinued years ago. The "Free
Agent" that you can find occasionally is abandonware. The only
product Forte has now is "Agent", which you can use for free as
annoyware--the disabled features aren't hidden and every time you
inadvertently click on one it comes up with an ad for the for-pay
product.

Probably your best bet is to use Thunderbird for both
usenet and mail.

Ironically, one of the first things you might want to do when you
leave Google Groups is filter out all posts from @google.com.
That's
where 90% of the usenet spam is coming from these days.

Colin

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Puff Griffis wrote:
Just curious whets the matter with Outlook ? Its
already on your computer, It's free. It's easy and
it has filters.

Not Outlook, Outlook _Express_--different products, with no real
relation between them except that both are from Microsoft, both do
email, and both have "Outlook" in the name. You have to buy Outlook
and it doesn't have NNTP support without a third-party add-in. On
Vista, Outlook Express is no longer called that but is now "Windows
Mail".

Some people give the impression that they would rather die than use
Outlook Express and Internet Explorer--I don't understand the mindset
that gets that distraught about such things, but some people do.

"Old Guy" wrote in message
...
I've been using Google Groups, but it has no
filters.

I'm tired of sorting out the legitimate posts
from the spam.

Can anyone recommend a good (preferably free)
news reader that will
work with Windows Vista?

I'm not really a bit-head, so installation needs
to be close to point
and click.

Thanks, and will be seeing you...

Old Guy

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Old Guy wrote in news:7ae265af-e63d-43a0-8a31-6e447b8971ee@
13g2000hsb.googlegroups.com:

I've been using Google Groups, but it has no filters.

I'm tired of sorting out the legitimate posts from the spam.

Can anyone recommend a good (preferably free) news reader that will
work with Windows Vista?

I'm not really a bit-head, so installation needs to be close to point
and click.

Thanks, and will be seeing you...

Old Guy

I like Xnews... but you don't need just a new newsreader. You need a
news provider to use with the newsreader. Your ISP may provide NNTP
access, or if they're like Wildblue they'll dump you off to Google
Groups.

Puckdropper
--
You can only do so much with caulk, cardboard, and duct tape.

To email me directly, send a message to puckdropper (at) fastmail.fm

J. Clarke wrote:
Puff Griffis wrote:
Just curious whets the matter with Outlook ? Its
already on your computer, It's free. It's easy and
it has filters.

Not Outlook, Outlook _Express_--different products, with no real
relation between them except that both are from Microsoft, both do
email, and both have "Outlook" in the name. You have to buy Outlook
and it doesn't have NNTP support without a third-party add-in. On
Vista, Outlook Express is no longer called that but is now "Windows
Mail".

Some people give the impression that they would rather die than use
Outlook Express and Internet Explorer--I don't understand the mindset
that gets that distraught about such things, but some people do.

That would be me. :-)

For years, Outlook (and Outlook Express) didn't follow the various mail
RFCs. In other words, they were clients for Windows mail, not Windows
clients for email. Microsoft used them to try to usurp the platform-neutral
nature of email.
Also, they had such lovely "features" as auto-open attachments. Before
Outlook came along, there were hoax emails that went around claiming,
"DO NOT OPEN AN EMAIL MESSAGE WITH THE SUBJECT (whatever)!!! IT WILL
DESTROY YOUR COMPUTER!!!" Those of us in computing laughed and grimmaced
turnabout at the stupidity of such messages--that is, until Microsoft made
such behaviour possible and even quite likely. Then add the amazing number
of years its taken them to make a product that STILL isn't stable, and
the fact that spam proliferation is predominantly based on Outlook/OE holes,
and I have enough justification to remove it from any PC I own. (And that
doesn't even bring up the issue of default HTML email--or just how badly
MS generates HTML.)

As for IE, similar concerns: They've aggressively added non-standard
extensions to HTML, such that websites designed for IE don't work in a
standards-compliant browser. Web pages that are designed for IE, aren't
really web pages--they're Windows application documents, and have no
business being published on port 80, which is reserved for the web.

Oh yeah, then there's the fact that IE is tied directly into the kernel,
which makes it easier to either trash or take over the user's computer.

Between IE and OE, I blame Microsoft for making spam and virus-writing
profitable. Given that roughly 90% OF ALL EMAIL TRAFFIC is now spam, and
that the spam is predominantly generated by the Russian mafia, I'd say
that Microsoft has some 'splainin' to do.

As for why I get distraught about it, well it's my job. I'm a Unix admin.
:-)

Colin

That's all a perfectly good justification for an anti-MS
religion/philosophy.

My desktop will be Windows-based for the foreseeable future for practical,
not philisophical reasons.

OE is still pretty decent newsreader.

-Steve


"Colin B." wrote in message
news:Kp8Jj.23981$Cj7.397@pd7urf2no...
J. Clarke wrote:
Puff Griffis wrote:
Just curious whets the matter with Outlook ? Its
already on your computer, It's free. It's easy and
it has filters.

Not Outlook, Outlook _Express_--different products, with no real
relation between them except that both are from Microsoft, both do
email, and both have "Outlook" in the name. You have to buy Outlook
and it doesn't have NNTP support without a third-party add-in. On
Vista, Outlook Express is no longer called that but is now "Windows
Mail".

Some people give the impression that they would rather die than use
Outlook Express and Internet Explorer--I don't understand the mindset
that gets that distraught about such things, but some people do.

That would be me. :-)

For years, Outlook (and Outlook Express) didn't follow the various mail
RFCs. In other words, they were clients for Windows mail, not Windows
clients for email. Microsoft used them to try to usurp the
platform-neutral
nature of email.
Also, they had such lovely "features" as auto-open attachments. Before
Outlook came along, there were hoax emails that went around claiming,
"DO NOT OPEN AN EMAIL MESSAGE WITH THE SUBJECT (whatever)!!! IT WILL
DESTROY YOUR COMPUTER!!!" Those of us in computing laughed and grimmaced
turnabout at the stupidity of such messages--that is, until Microsoft made
such behaviour possible and even quite likely. Then add the amazing number
of years its taken them to make a product that STILL isn't stable, and
the fact that spam proliferation is predominantly based on Outlook/OE
holes,
and I have enough justification to remove it from any PC I own. (And that
doesn't even bring up the issue of default HTML email--or just how badly
MS generates HTML.)

As for IE, similar concerns: They've aggressively added non-standard
extensions to HTML, such that websites designed for IE don't work in a
standards-compliant browser. Web pages that are designed for IE, aren't
really web pages--they're Windows application documents, and have no
business being published on port 80, which is reserved for the web.

Oh yeah, then there's the fact that IE is tied directly into the kernel,
which makes it easier to either trash or take over the user's computer.

Between IE and OE, I blame Microsoft for making spam and virus-writing
profitable. Given that roughly 90% OF ALL EMAIL TRAFFIC is now spam, and
that the spam is predominantly generated by the Russian mafia, I'd say
that Microsoft has some 'splainin' to do.

As for why I get distraught about it, well it's my job. I'm a Unix admin.
:-)

Colin



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"Colin B." wrote

As for why I get distraught about it, well it's my job. I'm a Unix admin.

Yeah, well ... about 20+ years ago I gave up my priestly robes and embraced
Windows. It's arguably made my _personal_ computing/online life much simpler
(and cheaper than previously possible) despite its many shortcomings.

.... not to mention that it's difficult to imagine my 86 year old mother
'spamming the family' on anything else.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 3/27/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

On Apr 3, 11:43 am, "J. Clarke" wrote:
Puff Griffis wrote:
Just curious whets the matter with Outlook ? Its
already on your computer, It's free. It's easy and
it has filters.

Not Outlook, Outlook _Express_--different products, with no real
relation between them except that both are from Microsoft, both do
email, and both have "Outlook" in the name. You have to buy Outlook
and it doesn't have NNTP support without a third-party add-in. On
Vista, Outlook Express is no longer called that but is now "Windows
Mail".

Some people give the impression that they would rather die than use
Outlook Express and Internet Explorer--I don't understand the mindset
that gets that distraught about such things, but some people do.


OE used to have a huge security hole--it would try to execute
plain text [1] in the middle of a UseNet article. After several years
MS issued a patch.

The sheer stupidity of writing software that does that, coupled
with the irresponsibility of not fixing it, is one reason why so
many people avoid it and other MS products, especially those
that access the internet.


[1] If a line of text began with the word 'BEGIN' and that word
was followed by a certain number of spaces or linefeeds (I
don't remember which), OE would try to interpret and execute
whatever followed. Unless the article was written with deliberate
malicious intent the effect was usually to just not display
the text that followed.

Now you know why so many Usenet articles used to start with
the word 'BEGIN'. Unless of course you were using OE, in
which case you now know why so many appeared to be
blank...

--

FF

"Colin B." wrote in message
news:Kp8Jj.23981$Cj7.397@pd7urf2no...
J. Clarke wrote:

Between IE and OE, I blame Microsoft for making spam and virus-writing
profitable. Given that roughly 90% OF ALL EMAIL TRAFFIC is now spam, and
that the spam is predominantly generated by the Russian mafia, I'd say
that Microsoft has some 'splainin' to

As for why I get distraught about it, well it's my job. I'm a Unix admin.
:-)

Colin

Oh good gosh, if Microsoft were not so easy to hack, Apple or Unix would be
the next "easy" target. Be glad your job is to work with a less sought
after target. If Microsoft and it's inept abilities to curb spam were to
disappear tomorrow your job would become a nightmare 3 or 4 weeks later.
The next most popular OS would be the target just like Microsoft is now.

On Apr 3, 1:24 pm, "Colin B." wrote:

...

Between IE and OE, I blame Microsoft for making spam and virus-writing
profitable. Given that roughly 90% OF ALL EMAIL TRAFFIC is now spam, and
that the spam is predominantly generated by the Russian mafia, I'd say
that Microsoft has some 'splainin' to do.

As for why I get distraught about it, well it's my job. I'm a Unix admin.
:-)


You forgot to mention the versions of XP home that required the
user to connect to MS over the internet and without any firewall or
other protections in order to complete the installation. The
ruesult
was that many, if not most, installations of XP on home computers
with high speed internet access were compromised with zombies
use to propagate spam, viruses, and DDOS attacks during their
initial installation.

Note XP was targeted JUST because it was common. XP
was targeted because the Microsoft installation process REQUIRED
that it be left open for abuse.

Thus demonstrating Heinlein's observation that there are degrees
of incompetence or stupidity so extreme as to be indistinguishable
from malice.

--

FF

"Leon" wrote

Oh good gosh, if Microsoft were not so easy to hack, Apple or Unix would
be
the next "easy" target. Be glad your job is to work with a less sought
after target. If Microsoft and it's inept abilities to curb spam were to
disappear tomorrow your job would become a nightmare 3 or 4 weeks later.
The next most popular OS would be the target just like Microsoft is now.

While I never really bought into that argument because of the inherent
difficulty of propagating malicious code at root level on a properly
administered 'nix box, I do thank MSFT for the ubiquity of modern _PERSONAL_
computing, in spite of itself.

I was on the corporate side of the game when IBM was basically the only show
in town and I $hudder to think of the cost of those days.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 3/27/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

"Swingman" wrote in message
news

"Leon" wrote

Oh good gosh, if Microsoft were not so easy to hack, Apple or Unix would
be
the next "easy" target. Be glad your job is to work with a less sought
after target. If Microsoft and it's inept abilities to curb spam were
to
disappear tomorrow your job would become a nightmare 3 or 4 weeks later.
The next most popular OS would be the target just like Microsoft is now.

While I never really bought into that argument because of the inherent
difficulty of propagating malicious code at root level on a properly
administered 'nix box, I do thank MSFT for the ubiquity of modern
_PERSONAL_
computing, in spite of itself.

I agree that it would be harder, until some one like the 14 year old that
hacked the I-phone came along and did his thing. ;~) 30 years ago there
were many impossible things yet to be done. Today, now so many.


I was on the corporate side of the game when IBM was basically the only
show
in town and I $hudder to think of the cost of those days.

"Colin B." wrote in message
news:Kp8Jj.23981$Cj7.397@pd7urf2no...


... I'm a Unix admin.
:-)

Colin


That's really all you needed to say

--
********
Bill Pounds
http://www.billpounds.com

StephenM wrote:
That's all a perfectly good justification for an anti-MS
religion/philosophy.

Yes, yes it is. I'm pretty comfortable with that.

My desktop will be Windows-based for the foreseeable future for practical,
not philisophical reasons.

Understood. My wife is an AutoCAD instructor, and AutoCAD doesn't run on
anything else. I'm fully in favour of practicality winning over philosophy
in most situations.

OE is still pretty decent newsreader.

Well...no. It's not. All philosophical rants aside, it's just not a good
newsreader or mail client. It's slow, buggy, unstable, badly organised,
and encourages bad posting behaviour.

But that's all I'll say on the issue here. Suffice to say, I recommend
Thunderbird as a usenet client to anyone. (Even though I'm a profound
luddite, and use tin :-)

Colin

On Thu, 3 Apr 2008 11:38:32 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

Frank Boettcher wrote:
On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:58:03 GMT, "Colin B."
wrote:

Old Guy wrote:
I've been using Google Groups, but it has no filters.

I'm tired of sorting out the legitimate posts from the spam.

Can anyone recommend a good (preferably free) news reader that
will
work with Windows Vista?

I'm not really a bit-head, so installation needs to be close to
point and click.

Thanks, and will be seeing you...

Years ago I would have said use Forte Free Agent, but it has been
discontinued.

I'm using it as I type. Do you mean that the free version is not
available for new suscribers?

It does not, however, have filters in the free version.

There is no free version. It was discontinued years ago. The "Free
Agent" that you can find occasionally is abandonware. The only
product Forte has now is "Agent", which you can use for free as
annoyware--the disabled features aren't hidden and every time you
inadvertently click on one it comes up with an ad for the for-pay
product.

Hmm, I guess what throws me off is when it comes up it clearly says
"free agent" at the top of the page. I didn't know there was a
predecessor. Was it full featured for free?

What you say about the disabled features not being hidden is accurate.
However, I've used it for a long time without them, but may consider a
change.

Frank

Probably your best bet is to use Thunderbird for both
usenet and mail.

Ironically, one of the first things you might want to do when you
leave Google Groups is filter out all posts from @google.com.
That's
where 90% of the usenet spam is coming from these days.

Colin

--

On Apr 3, 3:21 pm, "Leon" wrote:
"Colin B." wrote in message

news:Kp8Jj.23981$Cj7.397@pd7urf2no...

J. Clarke wrote:

Between IE and OE, I blame Microsoft for making spam and virus-writing
profitable. Given that roughly 90% OF ALL EMAIL TRAFFIC is now spam, and
that the spam is predominantly generated by the Russian mafia, I'd say
that Microsoft has some 'splainin' to

As for why I get distraught about it, well it's my job. I'm a Unix admin.
:-)

Colin

Oh good gosh, if Microsoft were not so easy to hack, Apple or Unix would be
the next "easy" target. Be glad your job is to work with a less sought
after target. If Microsoft and it's inept abilities to curb spam were to
disappear tomorrow your job would become a nightmare 3 or 4 weeks later.
The next most popular OS would be the target just like Microsoft is now.

You can say that all you want but that doesn't make it so.
I'll explain again why it is not so:

It sounds like you never heard of the "Join the Crew Virus"
or Windows XP. All of the Linuxes, Unixes, and OSX are
more secure BY DESIGN. They were designed to NOT
execute code sent to a machine over the internet by
an anonymous third party. Microsoftware was DESIGNED
to execute code sent to a computer over the internet by
an anonymous third party.

"Join the Crew" was a chain letter circulated in the late
1980s or early 1990s about a supposed email virus that would
infect your computer if you opened the email. System
administrators had to keep reassuring their users that it
was NOT possible to get a virus by reading email.

Then Microsoft discovered the internet and distributed email
clients that DID make it possible to infect a computer by
merely reading email, and in some cases just by receiving
it, no need to even read it. NO OTHER OS did THAT!

They topped that with XP which required that the user
make an insecure connection over the internet to com-
plete the installation. NO OTHER OS DID THAT.

These were not the result fo the crackers getting smarter.
Microsoft put onto the market with FEATURES, not bugs,
that rendered them insecurable. Microsoft wrote operating
systems that deliberately and by design allowed other parties
to control a local computer over the internet WITHOUT the
permission or even notification of the local user.

I cannot overstress the fact that these were not bugs. They
were written to do EXACTLY what the crackers did with them,
excepting for the specifics of the malicious applications.

That is only one reason why spam proliferates.

Another reason is that ISPs with good spam control
on their own networks (AOL is one of these) play 'whack o'
mole" trying to block spam, instead of simply refusing all
internet traffic from networks that harbor spammers.

Contrary to popular belief, the ISPs that host most spammers
are known and that information is published by the likes
of SpamHaus. See the http://www.spamhaus.org top
ten spam supporting ISP list, for example.

Verizon led the list for years as a consequence of buying
spam-friendly MCI (formerly UUNET) , but has now dropped
to #6.

BTW, more than three times as many spammers are hosted
in the USA as in any other country. China is a distant
second.

--

FF

Puckdropper wrote in
:

Old Guy wrote in
news:7ae265af-e63d-43a0-8a31-6e447b8971ee@
13g2000hsb.googlegroups.com:

I've been using Google Groups, but it has no filters.

I'm tired of sorting out the legitimate posts from the spam.

Can anyone recommend a good (preferably free) news reader that will
work with Windows Vista?

I'm not really a bit-head, so installation needs to be close to point
and click.

Thanks, and will be seeing you...

Old Guy

I like Xnews... but you don't need just a new newsreader. You need a
news provider to use with the newsreader. Your ISP may provide NNTP
access, or if they're like Wildblue they'll dump you off to Google
Groups.

Puckdropper

I would second the vote for Xnews. I used to use Netscape version 5 or
so, but then it got sucky. For me Xnews was closest to what I was used
to. It is free.

See also news.software.readers for help.

I use Verizon's newsserver (FiOS).

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

I'm very happy with Agent as well, but I'm not sure "Free Agent" is
still available.

-Zz

On Thu, 3 Apr 2008 09:31:34 -0500, "Upscale"
wrote:


"Jim Behning"
I have been using Forte Agent for years. I would not say it is
neccessarily easy but once you get the basic setup it works pretty
well. I have posts saved for a long time that I think I might refer to
again.

I agree. Although I usually use Outlook for general email, like you I use
Agent 4.2 for all my uploading and downloading. It has a number of improved
features over the V1.9 that I was using previously.

Old Guy wrote:
I've been using Google Groups, but it has no filters.

I'm tired of sorting out the legitimate posts from the spam.

Can anyone recommend a good (preferably free) news reader that will
work with Windows Vista?

I'm not really a bit-head, so installation needs to be close to point
and click.

Thanks, and will be seeing you...

Old Guy

As someone else has mentioned, you'll also need a news server. Many you
have to pay for, but I use a free one called aioe.org. It's not perfect,
but I don't see a lot of spam in the Wreck. So it does some filtering.
Whatever reader you settle on ( I also use Thunderbird from mozilla.org)
can help you with what aioe lets through.

--
Tanus

This is not really a sig.

http://www.home.mycybernet.net/~waugh/shop/

Tanus wrote:
Old Guy wrote:
I've been using Google Groups, but it has no filters.

I'm tired of sorting out the legitimate posts from the spam.

Can anyone recommend a good (preferably free) news reader that will
work with Windows Vista?

I'm not really a bit-head, so installation needs to be close to point
and click.

Thanks, and will be seeing you...

Old Guy

As someone else has mentioned, you'll also need a news server. Many you
have to pay for, but I use a free one called aioe.org. It's not perfect,
but I don't see a lot of spam in the Wreck. So it does some filtering.
Whatever reader you settle on ( I also use Thunderbird from mozilla.org)
can help you with what aioe lets through.

I used Netscape 7 for main years because of the browser and email. As
previously said Netscape died. I Installed FireFox and Thunderbird. I
have been very satisfied with both. I also installed the Thunderbird
Lightening addin Again I am very satisfied.

Both work in ways like like the old Netscape.

"Fred the Red Shirt" wrote in message
...

You can say that all you want but that doesn't make it so.
I'll explain again why it is not so:

It sounds like you never heard of the "Join the Crew Virus"
or Windows XP. All of the Linuxes, Unixes, and OSX are
more secure BY DESIGN. They were designed to NOT
execute code sent to a machine over the internet by
an anonymous third party. Microsoftware was DESIGNED
to execute code sent to a computer over the internet by
an anonymous third party.

Snip

Well I am sure that every thing you say here is true, today. But security
be design is going to be cracked by some one. The strong point to all the
other systems security is that 99% of the people spamming and sending out
viruses are concentrating on the easy target. As long as other systems are
not as widely useful as Windows the attraction is going to be low. Until
another OS gets the attention that Windows does by the spammers no really
knows what holes of methods can be devised in the future to cause havoc. To
think that your set up is impenetrable is to be a bit naive.

"Colin B." wrote in message
OE is still pretty decent newsreader.

Well...no. It's not. All philosophical rants aside, it's just not a good
newsreader or mail client. It's slow, buggy, unstable, badly organised,
and encourages bad posting behaviour.

Bull****. After using OE for many years, listening to others recommendations
I tried other newsreaders. I'm back to using OE and I'm sticking with it.
Does everything I want it to do and at no cost. I like it so much I may
just send Bill Gates a $20 bill as a thank you.

On Apr 4, 1:25 am, "Leon" wrote:
"Fred the Red Shirt" wrote in ...



You can say that all you want but that doesn't make it so.
I'll explain again why it is not so:

It sounds like you never heard of the "Join the Crew Virus"
or Windows XP. All of the Linuxes, Unixes, and OSX are
more secure BY DESIGN. They were designed to NOT
execute code sent to a machine over the internet by
an anonymous third party. Microsoftware was DESIGNED
to execute code sent to a computer over the internet by
an anonymous third party.

Snip

Well I am sure that every thing you say here is true, today. But security
be design is going to be cracked by some one. The strong point to all the
other systems security is that 99% of the people spamming and sending out
viruses are concentrating on the easy target.


No, the strong point to all of the other systems is that they
_have to be cracked_.

Abusers didn't have to crack Windows, they just used the
available plug-ins.

Using Windows on the internet was like walking into a gay bar
at closing time with your pants down around your ankles.

... To
think that your set up is impenetrable is to be a bit naive.

False dichotomy--like 'safe' or 'unsafe' in a woodshop.

--

FF

On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:24:58 +0000, Colin B. wrote:

That would be me. :-)

And me, for much the same reasons. But explaining that to a non-techie is
a lost cause. With a great deal of persuasion you might get them to use
Thunderbird.

There are applications that don't run under anything but Windows so I have
it on my machine. But most of the time, and all the time I'm online, I
use Linux. When I get the time I'm going to try WINE (Windows emulator)
and see if the apps I use will run under it.

On Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:25:46 +0000, Leon wrote:

Until
another OS gets the attention that Windows does by the spammers no really
knows what holes of methods can be devised in the future to cause havoc. To
think that your set up is impenetrable is to be a bit naive.

Leon, the point he's trying to make is that spammers didn't have to devise
any methods to get into Windows - Microsoft provided them :-).

AFAIK, that is not the case with any of the Unix variants. I wrote code
to control, among other things, smelters, rolling mills, radio
telescopes, and computer aided dispatch. All of them were concerned about
security for obvious reasons, especially the highway patrol :-).

To put it another way, setting up an insecure Unix box takes a fair amount
of work. Work that can only be done by someone with superuser authority.
Setting up a secure Windows box takes a great amount of work and the
result is a crippled system because many features must be disabled.

Larry Blanchard wrote:
On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:24:58 +0000, Colin B. wrote:

That would be me. :-)

And me, for much the same reasons. But explaining that to a non-techie is
a lost cause. With a great deal of persuasion you might get them to use
Thunderbird.

There are applications that don't run under anything but Windows so I have
it on my machine. But most of the time, and all the time I'm online, I
use Linux. When I get the time I'm going to try WINE (Windows emulator)
and see if the apps I use will run under it.


Try vmware server on linux. Any windows apps you need will run with no
problems. You can install windows and any windows apps that you might
need. When your windows virtual machine gets hacked, just delete and
reinstall. Your linux machine will be the none the worse for wear.

http://www.vmware.com/products/server/

I have it on my linux box running win2K, winXP and Solaris 10, all at
the same time and with no performance issues. Memory is your friend -
on a desktop with 2.5GB, I still don't have any paging issues.

Fortunately, the only windows apps I need are things like Taxcut and
cutlist. So far, my virtual windows machines haven't been hacked,
probably because of infrequent use and a good linux based
firewall/nat/dns/dhcp linksys wireless router running the dd-wrt linux
based firmware as well as the full suite of AVG protection tools.

Larry Blanchard wrote:

On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:24:58 +0000, Colin B. wrote:

That would be me. :-)

And me, for much the same reasons. But explaining that to a non-techie is
a lost cause. With a great deal of persuasion you might get them to use
Thunderbird.

There are applications that don't run under anything but Windows so I have
it on my machine. But most of the time, and all the time I'm online, I
use Linux. When I get the time I'm going to try WINE (Windows emulator)
and see if the apps I use will run under it.

I'm using Crossover Office (a shell around WINE), some things work well,
others not so well, and some not at all. For example, Lotus 123, TreePad
and TaxAct work fine. I could not load TurboCAD, TaxCut, or MindManager.
The Crossover web site (www.codeweavers.com) is pretty good in rating
applications and has a fairly exhaustive list of what will work, what may
work, and what won't.


--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough

Doug Winterburn wrote:

Larry Blanchard wrote:
On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:24:58 +0000, Colin B. wrote:

That would be me. :-)

And me, for much the same reasons. But explaining that to a non-techie
is
a lost cause. With a great deal of persuasion you might get them to use
Thunderbird.

There are applications that don't run under anything but Windows so I
have
it on my machine. But most of the time, and all the time I'm online, I
use Linux. When I get the time I'm going to try WINE (Windows emulator)
and see if the apps I use will run under it.


Try vmware server on linux. Any windows apps you need will run with no
problems. You can install windows and any windows apps that you might
need. When your windows virtual machine gets hacked, just delete and
reinstall. Your linux machine will be the none the worse for wear.

http://www.vmware.com/products/server/


I looked into that, the problems I had were a) it requires buying a
Windows license -- seems somewhat defeating of the purpose and b) having to
re-compile the kernel to make it work with OpenSuse.

Someday, I may re-visit this if there is something that I absolutely have
to run that doesn't have an alternative.

--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough

Mark & Juanita wrote:
Doug Winterburn wrote:

Larry Blanchard wrote:
On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:24:58 +0000, Colin B. wrote:

That would be me. :-)
And me, for much the same reasons. But explaining that to a non-techie
is
a lost cause. With a great deal of persuasion you might get them to use
Thunderbird.

There are applications that don't run under anything but Windows so I
have
it on my machine. But most of the time, and all the time I'm online, I
use Linux. When I get the time I'm going to try WINE (Windows emulator)
and see if the apps I use will run under it.

Try vmware server on linux. Any windows apps you need will run with no
problems. You can install windows and any windows apps that you might
need. When your windows virtual machine gets hacked, just delete and
reinstall. Your linux machine will be the none the worse for wear.

http://www.vmware.com/products/server/


I looked into that, the problems I had were a) it requires buying a
Windows license -- seems somewhat defeating of the purpose and b) having to
re-compile the kernel to make it work with OpenSuse.

Someday, I may re-visit this if there is something that I absolutely have
to run that doesn't have an alternative.


I already had the windows OS from previous purchase of hardware where
you have no choice, so no problem. It is a very easy install with
ubuntu and automatix2.

On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 08:09:15 -0700, Lou Newell
wrote:

Old Guy wrote:
I've been using Google Groups, but it has no filters.

I'm tired of sorting out the legitimate posts from the spam.

Can anyone recommend a good (preferably free) news reader that will
work with Windows Vista?

I'm not really a bit-head, so installation needs to be close to point
and click.

Thanks, and will be seeing you...

Old Guy
Thunderbird is free.

If you can use Filters or Junk controls or some other method in
Thunderbird to get rid of all the spam showing up in the Wreck, I'd
surely like to know how. It looks like you can create filters from
existing messages, but I don't see how to get them to clean out the
headers that have already been downloaded.

From an Agent user, used to using wildcards when sending to the
killfile...

Maxwell Lol wrote:
Fred the Red Shirt writes:

It sounds like you never heard of the "Join the Crew Virus"
or Windows XP. All of the Linuxes, Unixes, and OSX are
more secure BY DESIGN.

Except when you screw up. The iPhone runs as superuser, and not
an
unpriviledged user. This is one reason why it was so easy to hack.

According to McAfee (and a large number of other sources) the "Join
the Crew Virus" was a hoax.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

"Larry Blanchard" wrote

To put it another way, setting up an insecure Unix box takes a fair amount
of work. Work that can only be done by someone with superuser authority.

Setting up a secure Windows box takes a great amount of work and the
result is a crippled system because many features must be disabled.

Except for the last line, very well said ... however, I consider a box upon
which I can't run my software of choice "crippled", no matter how "secure".


--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 3/27/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

"Leon" wrote

Well I am sure that every thing you say here is true, today. But security
be design is going to be cracked by some one. The strong point to all
the
other systems security is that 99% of the people spamming and sending out
viruses are concentrating on the easy target. As long as other systems
are
not as widely useful as Windows the attraction is going to be low. Until
another OS gets the attention that Windows does by the spammers no really
knows what holes of methods can be devised in the future to cause havoc.
To
think that your set up is impenetrable is to be a bit naive.


Granted a bit of a simplistic overview, but IMO, the point being missed in
many of the arguments being bantered about, and using the word "security",
is the distinction therein between the "hacking" (for lack of a better term)
or breaching of a system/network; and the act of spreading viri/malicious
code by _exploiting_ sloppy programming.

Both fit nicely under the umbrella of "security" and are often used in
conjunction to compromise a system/network.

The fact that MSFT operating systems, whether for server platforms or
workstations, have historically shipped with defaults set to 'ease of use'
instead of 'security against breach' has been a big problem with the first
part above. Add to the mix the fact that sloppy coding inherent in a
rush-to-market mentality (notably manifested in the infamous "buffer
overruns") has been responsible for most of the known virus/malicious code
exploits with MSFT products.

Now add those two, ALONG with their _ubiquity_, which you correctly mention,
and you get the deadly combination we are currently in with regard to
"security" as users of MSFT products.

I'm not a MSFT detractor, but in the realm of security they indeed shot
themselves, as well as their users, in the foot in their headlong rush for
market share, with "security" arguably not even entering into their thoughts
until forced to do so by the obvious.

That MSFT still does not have their act together in this regard is amply
illustrated by the number of "security updates" in yours and my "Windows
Update" logs ... ... not to mention that this particular genie is VERY
difficult to get back into the code base bottle.

As far as the ease of effecting the "security" of a system/network with
tools, knowledge, and an inherent, built-in capacity to do so, Larry
Blanchard put it very succinctly in another post.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 3/27/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

"Jim Weisgram" wrote in message
...


If you can use Filters or Junk controls or some other method in
Thunderbird to get rid of all the spam showing up in the Wreck, I'd
surely like to know how. It looks like you can create filters from
existing messages, but I don't see how to get them to clean out the
headers that have already been downloaded.

Yeah for the 3rd or 4th time I have down loaded and installed Thunderbird
and an hour later uninstalled it because the Use filter is greyed out.
Creating the filter was easy enough. Using help was a night mare.






From an Agent user, used to using wildcards when sending to the
killfile...