On 2024-01-28 19:26, Andrei Borzenkov wrote:
On 28.01.2024 20:52, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2024-01-28 17:34, Dave Howorth wrote: ...
But there is the possibility of confusion (at its most polite) with HTML, since it is a separate part. I frequently receive mailshots from companies where the text and html parts say something completely different. I do not want to experience some malicious person doing that on a mailing list! And what does/can HTML bring extra to an email? This is not a commercial mail list, just normal people. So I don't expect to get mails with totally different parts like you say.
HTML mails come with two alternative parts - plain text and HTML. It is up to the sender MUA how to compose them and to the recipient MUA which part to display. It has absolutely nothing to do with being commercial or not. Actually, several online shops here send advertisements with two parts but plain text part is empty. I never felt like wasting time to analyze HTML part in these messages whether they can even be sensibly represented as plain text.
Yes, I have seen email with empty plain text parts, but if seen here, that would be worthy of a bugzilla report against the Linux MUA that generated it ;-)
Then, I have never seen a dangerous html email, besides spam in the spam folder where the text says one thing and the link points to something different.
Good. You proved mails pose no threats. "I personally have not seen it" is the ultimate proof of anything.
When over the decades people in mail lists say that html is dangerous, I usually ask for examples. Most of them are not capable to produce them. There is javascript, but the mail client should not render it. If there is dangerous email and Thunderbird does something naughty, that would be a bug to report. There is phising, of course, and all kind of evil posts. Many of them in plain text.
For some reasons my customers are not satisfied with the answer "I cannot reproduce it so you have no problems, I will close your ticket".
-- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.4 x86_64 at Telcontar)