Censorship in Thunderbird

Bill_Hwy · 01-17-2008, 10:07 PM

This may turn out to be more of a rant than a question--oh, well... Does anyone have a problem with the censorship going on in Thunderbird now?? Mozilla, in their wisdom has seen fit to make Thunderbird block all remote images in e-mail. They are pushing the function in their ads as though it were something good. They are "protecting our privacy". I have news for you friends--that ain't protection, it's CENSORSHIP. Am I the only person in the world whose correspondents send e-mails with embedded graphics images, which I can't see, thanks to some idiot at Mozilla?? They didn't provide any way to turn the function off, so it's time to dump Thunderbird. End of rant--thanks for listening, if you did...

gankoji · 01-17-2008, 10:16 PM

Bill,

Although I don't use Thunderbird, I have to agree that not having your graphics is frustrating. Can you roll back to an earlier version of thunderbird? I checked Mozilla's website and it likes to autodetect your system and only give you one option for a download, so there's no shot at an archived version. Mozilla gets a wag of the finger for this one.

Check out http://www.emailclients.net/free-email-clients.htm for a list of other clients you can use in your boycott.

Cheers :-)

farslayer · 01-17-2008, 10:32 PM

Are you sure you're not jumping to conclusions ?

Quote:

For remote images: go to "Tools -> Options -> (Advanced if using 1.07 or below) -> Privacy -> General" and uncheck the box for "Block loading of remote images in mail messages." It is recommended that you keep this checked as your default setting, however, as spammers can use remote images to detect whether you've viewed messages they've sent to you. The "Privacy -> General" tab is no longer available since the Thunderbird 2.0 version. You can still change that setting by modifying mailnews.message_display.disable_remote_image in the Config editor. Thunderbird 2.0 blocks all remote images by default. You can enable remote images for an email address by clicking on "Click here to always load remote images from ...". That adds an entry to the address book that has "Allow remote images in HTML mail" checked. You might want to create an images address book and select it instead of the personal address book if it's for a newsletter that you can't reply to.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Images_in_..._do_not_appear

rickh · 01-17-2008, 10:41 PM

It blocks the images by default, but there is a button right there, front and center, that says "Load Images." Pretty limited censorship if you ask me.

kromberg · 01-18-2008, 11:12 AM

It is not censorship, but it is a way to help cut down on spam. Most email readers now support embeded html to have images appear within the content of the the email. Embedded html images are not mime attachments. A lot of spammers are sending email with with embedded images in them. Now when a user opens the spammers email with embedded images, the spammers server will send out the image along with housing keeping info( each image request in the email has a unique identify associated with your that email address that is sent back with the image request ). Now they know your email address is a real and active account. Let the email come flooding in.

Keith

Bill_Hwy · 01-18-2008, 11:55 AM

Gankoji:

Thanks, I tried the mail section of Seamonkey and it's an older T'bird.

Farslayer:

I have about a 6-inch thick stack of Linux documentation, but that quote isn't there. There's no such thing as enough documents...Thanks..

Rickh:

That button only appears on spam messages, which have a computer connection behind them, not on regular e-mail. But thanks for answering.

rickh · 01-18-2008, 12:29 PM

Quote:

That button only appears on spam messages

On my system it appears on any message that has an image in the body o the email, spam or not.