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Use plaintext email

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Re: Use plaintext email

#261

Post by snowwrestler »

ddevault wrote: post #200
snowwrestler wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but it's also true that plain text emails do not prevent phishing.

No, but I think it's fair to say that they make it more difficult.

If an HTML phishing email is hiding an obviously malicious URL behind an image or button, then yeah, that URL would be more visible in a plain text email.

But it's also visible in the address bar of the browser after you click it... and people will fill in the form anyway.

Plain text doesn't solve complacency and distraction, it doesn't solve URL composition tricks and redirect wrappers, it doesn't solve spoofing, and it doesn't solve malicious attachments.

If Google's account emails were all plain text, I'm sure phishers would figure out how to make them look as identical to Google's emails as possible, and still get some people.

IMO we already know some good ways to mitigate phishing, but their implementation is spotty: DMARC, hardware token 2FA, and good IT practices in terms of patching, privilege, and backups.

Re: Use plaintext email

#262

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

yyyk wrote: post #255
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla's engine is a giant multi-million lines-of-code ball of C++ and Rust and JavaScript weighing in at nearly 200 MiB - not including dependencies. And what if I don't want to support the browser monoculture? Implementing a new one is a daunting task (nigh impossible), but rendering plaintext is easy peasy. Mutt is 1 megabyte.

HTML email in practice doesn't need much more than what w3m supports, in some places less - no need for w3m's frame, cookie, or FTP support. w3m is smaller than mutt. Limiting HTML mail to an agreed subset could actually be a winnable fight compared to more impractical suggestions.

As someone who uses w3m to read HTML emails sometimes, it's very hit and miss. Perhaps 50% of emails are easily readable in w3m, on a good day.

Re: Use plaintext email

#263

Post by throw0101a »

esoterica wrote: post #226
throw0101a wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is plain text preferred and by whom? Besides making phishing easier (by disguising links, unless you hover over them), what exactly does HTML add? Most people simply bang out a bunch of text without any formatting: what does wrapping HTML around that add? I have yet to see a layman someone add useful typographic flourishes to any business communications. Any "advanced" formatting has always come from marketers.

People use bold and italics, section headers, inline images, tables, text highlighting. The list goes on. Is it really that hard to wrap your head around the fact that formatting is useful for communication?

> People use [...]

Not in my experience. They hit reply, type something at the top with whatever the defaults are, and hit send.

> Is it really that hard to wrap your head around the fact that formatting is useful for communication?

I have all of Edward Tufte's books, as well Bringhurst's Typographic Style, and Chicago: I am aware of the usefulness of typography. I simply have not seen it in my day-to-day e-mails at work or in personal life (except for marketing spams).

Re: Use plaintext email

#264

Post by esoterica »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #259
esoterica wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes a special kind of narcissism to say “I don’t use tables, therefore no one could possible have any use for them.” Attached images are worse for readability. Instead of writing “blabla refer to attached image 3 blabla now look at image 4”, it’s far more convenient to just insert inline images at the locations where they are relevant. Instead of using stupid hacky workarounds for italics and headers why not use…

Couldn't help but notice that your ad hominem attack was conducted entirely in plain text.

It was not. The HN page contains html. Notice how the comments are in a different font and color from the metadata above each comment? Notice how that improves readability?

Re: Use plaintext email

#265

Post by liquid153 »

djrogers wrote: post #248
adtac wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"But if plaintext is so good, why is this page written in HTML?" >This is a reference document, not an email, you twit.

>This is a reference document, not an email, you twit. Abot 25% of the emails I write, and 90% of the important ones, are reference material for the people that get them. Screenshots, hghlights, and links to external documentation all make my email communication better, faster, and more useful to the recipients.

GOT EM!!! WHAT A TWIT

Re: Use plaintext email

#266

Post by parliament32 »

I use Claws Mail with the "Fancy HTML Viewer" plugin -- by default emails get rendered in plaintext but I can hit a few buttons to see the HTML version if I really need to (only happens occasionally). I only compose messages in plaintext, as do most of my coworkers, and it works great. The only thing that's still a problem is top posting... as much as I hate it, I'm not going to be That Guy and reply to a 8-email-deep 6-participant chain at the bottom.

Re: Use plaintext email

#267

Post by jimnotgym »

> Notice: Use of IMAP and SMTP with Protonmail requires the use of a special third-party bridge. Protonmail is not recommended for this reason.

I am a bit tired of this campaign against Protonmail by Sir_Cmpwn. Yeah you can't use SMTP directly. But if he was being objective would gmail not get a disclaimer "Google read your emails to work out what to sell you, and pass this on to government surveillance too"...Outlook is not recommended because... insert whichever gripe about protocols is on your mind.

Re: Use plaintext email

#268

Post by bitwize »

scbrg wrote: post #171
josho wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither you nor the poster provide a reason why. Why is it better? How does plain text make it faster to respond? Or even faster to read?

I would say that the real performance drain is top posting, which seems to go hand in hand with HTML emails. With top posting, in order to read a mail - especially one that is a few levels deep in a thread - becomes an exercise in jumping back and forth, trying to find context and make sense of who replies to what, finding relevant sentences (often hidden in a mess of signatures). With bottom posting and proper curat…

No. Always top post. This isn't 1990s USENET.

The reason why is because many clients fold emails that have redundant text in them -- and may hide bottom or interleaved posts within the fold.

Modern clients assume the "Outlook style" -- HTML formatted email, top posting. If you want your message to be read, use this style.

Re: Use plaintext email

#269

Post by esoterica »

throw0101a wrote: post #263
esoterica wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People use bold and italics, section headers, inline images, tables, text highlighting. The list goes on. Is it really that hard to wrap your head around the fact that formatting is useful for communication?

> People use [...] Not in my experience. They hit reply, type something at the top with whatever the defaults are, and hit send. > Is it really that hard to wrap your head around the fact that formatting is useful for communication? I have all of Edward Tufte's books, as well Bringhurst's Typographic Style , and Chicago : I am aware of the usefulness of typography. I simply have not seen it in my day-to-day e-mails a…

I see useful text formatting every day in the emails I send and receive. A reasonable person would accept that other people’s use cases and preferences are valid instead of writing haughty diatribes about what the platonic ideal of email should look like.

Re: Use plaintext email

#270

Post by jimnotgym »

u801e wrote: post #147
ubermonkey wrote: post #124

My god, this is never going to die, is it? I mean, I get it. There are some things about plaintext that are nice, or that really appeal to the kind of people who read HN. I used to have arguments about this, too -- but it was 20 years ago. Today, the ship has fucking SAILED. And you know what? It's GREAT. I send formatted email constantly -- and they're better for it. Being able to embed screenshots is awesome. Being…

> Being able to embed screenshots is awesome. Being able to use color, or bold, or italics, makes a difference in communication. Yet, you cannot do any of that on HN (other than a limited case like italic ). But, we can communicate just fine without those features. I suppose it's really a difference of a read once message versus having a discussion. In a read once message, you can format it like you describe. That's…

I don't see the point of email, I can communicate just fine by letter, by radio, by semaphore, by morse code (actually I suck at Morse).
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