[AMRadio] Virus/Worm, Web Mail, mailing lists

[Donald Chester]

I subscribe to several lists, and for all of them, I use my web-based 
Hotmail account.  With your regular ISP e-mail account, you click to check 
mail, and every new message in your inbox is downloaded to your hard drive 
before you can open any of them.  Supposedly, you cannot get a virus from 
simply opening e-mail unless you open an attachment.  But I have heard 
numerous people say that simply downloading a virus-laden message has 
adversely affected their computers.

With web-based mail, you check your in-box and get a list of new messages.  
You pick and choose the ones you want to read, one at at time.  Otherwise, 
you can delete them without ever downloading to your own hard drive.  They 
never leave the mail server's hard drive.

My ISP account and my account at work both have a feature that lets you can 
check mail from anywhere via the web, just like Hotmail and Yahoo.  I think 
many, if not most ISP's are offering this service, mainly to allow one to 
check mail from any computer anywhere in the world with web access.  Maybe 
it would be a good idea to always use the web based service, when available, 
  to scan the in-box before attempting to download any messasges.

The main problem I have with Hotmail and Yahoo is that they apparently sell 
your e-mail address to spammers.  I get an average of 32 spam messages a day 
to my Hotmail inbox, and a comparable amount to my Yahoo account.  However, 
I almost NEVER USE my Yahoo account, and have never given out the address to 
anyone.  Nevertheless I get the spam messages.  How else could the spammers 
get that address if Yahoo  didn't sell their subscription list?

The only virus-laden message I have ever received was spam that got through 
to my ISP account.  Norton caught it, and I was able to safely delete it 
without apparent mishap.

Don K4KYV

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