Oh no Microsoft! Don’t kill HTML Email again!

August 3, 2010 | By Surur

ohno

MobilityDigest has discovered, via Herm Software, that the handling of pictures on Windows Phone 7 is very similar to Windows Mobile 6 – No automatic downloading of pictures, and no option to change it.

Now we all understand the security and privacy implications of downloading pictures automatically, but on the desktop this is simply managed by giving the user the option of trusting e-mail from certain addresses, a seemingly simple option that is not resource intensive.

If Microsoft’s mission is to have Windows Phone 7 “just work” for your cyber-granny, maintaining one of the frustrations of Windows Mobile for the last 3 years is not the way to do it.

Join our protest by tweeting Brandon Watson at Microsoft with out concerns a www.twitter.com/BrandonWatson

See more pictures at MobilityDigest here.

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged html email, software, windows phone 7

Melika

I don't think that's Brandon's email address, That's Ben Watson's email address, I am 100% sure of it.
mbcls

also i hate the "tap to scroll right" !
WTF, just display everything! ok?

http://intensedebate.com/people/l3v5y l3v5y

I believe it does in WP7.

okkkk

I believe Microsoft is leaning on the safe side for now. the OS is only 1.5 years old, and i think eventually they will roll out some sort of update to alleviate this.
GP007

Not downloading pictures by default is not just for security, it's to save on data charges as well I bet. The phone will sync and grab new emails for you, but it doesn't get pics and attachments till you click on something. For a phone that's probably always checking your email, and if you get lots of it, that's the smart thing to do.

Unless you want to, you know, pay up the wazoo for data.
http://www.richspalding.com RichSpalding

There is one advantage of this, data charges. I don't want to go over my monthly 1Gb (in the UK) limit by reading image heavy html marketing emails that I happen to click on.

tonarm

I find it ok, but one tap to see the whole fckn male should be enough. Not one tap for scrolling and a double tap for pictures.

http://intensedebate.com/people/l3v5y l3v5y

I think it's just tap to download, there shouldn't be a tap to scroll.

http://intensedebate.com/people/martinschmidler martinschmidler

No, I cannot believe this is real… they put so much effort into creating a completely new user interface that's a pleasure to use but still they keep one of the most retarded quirks of WinMo 6.x…… *facepalm*

Btw you can reach out to Brandon Watson via Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/BrandonWatson

http://intensedebate.com/people/Blacked_Out Blacked_Out

I can see why they would do it, but give us the option at least…
Trusted senders or something…

Durishin

BUT WAIT!!!!!!!!!!

If I CHOOSE TO OPEN the email, I should get to see the email!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It isn't like a mail with possible eye-violating pictures is going to open itself!

Just let me decide how much data I want to come with the header.

And the tap and scroll bit. Don't EVEN get me started on that idiocy!

This is like suspenders and a belt. No! It's like lawyers!!!!!!!

If this is true – WP7 IS DOA for sure!

http://intensedebate.com/profiles/vangrieg vangrieg

Where did you find tap and scroll in WP7?

If you want to see the images, tap and see them, that's all you need to do.

Because you obviously don't understand why the measure is there, you certainly shouldn't get the option to download images automatically, for your own good.

And of course you can decide how much data to download. This particular thing is just not about data.

Durishin

OK, Van. Tell me, why is it there?

I choose what messages to open – and my exchange server does a great job of filtering SPAM. So, why should I have to wait to see something if I decide to open the message the something comes inside of. Hell Profimail builds HTML better than Outlook Mobile!

But, really. I am interested, why is it there?
http://intensedebate.com/profiles/vangrieg vangrieg

Why what is where?

Like I said elsewhere, after reading a message you can choose to close it, go to the message list and select your next one. Or just go to the next message bypassing the list. I do the latter of course, it's much faster. But I obviously don't see what the next message is about.

guest_123456

They should download the picture automatically if the entire email message is within your download size limit for each email.

Is there still a setting for download size limit for email?
If the email is larger than that size then the phone will not download the rest of the message?
Pedro de la Riva

See. Microsoft never learns.

I don't know if you guys are planning to buy a WP7 device this fall, but I am very curious to know how you will deal without Flash support, without Acrobat Reader, without automatic download of pictures, without Silverlight, without alternative browser, without multitask, without swype, without you tube, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc….

Walletless

Flash Support: iPhone does not have, and it does not seem to be a problem.. WP7 has committed that flash and SL support will be provided later on after the release, and you will not need a new device for that. I should update either over-the-air or through the desktop Zune software

Acrobat reader: Did I miss that notice that MSFT said it wont be in WP7? It may not be OOB, but I am sure they would work with Adobe to ensure they have one for WP7 through marketplace

Alternate browser: Most reviews so far seem to suggest that IE8 is pretty good and fast. Again MSFT has indicated that browser is not "baked in" to the OS – it can be updated later using the desktop Zune software

Swype: I need not say anything.. you should really checkout the default SIP on WP7.. its awesome – 2nd to none!

Youtube: There will be an APP for that. I know that because I am working on one. LOL.

Multitask: I played with the device a little, and did not miss it at all. I could listen to the Zune music while editing my word doc, and then jump into the browser and pictures hub – all while still listening to the music. I am glad they did not implement it like WM6.5 where any application could suck the hell out of battery by running in background (did you ever use Google Latitude on WM6.5 or Android.. you would know what I am talking about)

The only thing I miss is copy/paste, and I sincerely HOPE that MSFT will bring that soon as an over-the-air update. While there are plenty of hyperlinked content (such as clicking a phone number in IE brings up the dialler, etc); I still have scenarios where copy/paste would help.

MrEd

So I'll stay with 6.5 until Adobe thinks that WP7 is worth making a PDF viewer for. I use it every day, so this is a deal breaker.

IE8 may be good, but the syncing of my bookmarks with Opera 10 makes another deal breaker.

The built in keyboard MAY be GREAT, but it CANNOT beat swype. Period. Try swype, you'll be amazed.

Youtube? I could care less.

Multitasking has yet to be determined, but for some of the GPS stuff I use, I doubt it is going to work how I need it to.

Copy and paste? Another deal breaker…

Also, no USB host access, having to use the bloat they call the Zune software, and no VPN? Seriously, this has to be a joke MS.

Mikkkybukky

This does not make sense. when it automatically downloads all your friends facebook pictures on your phone and now they are worried about data size. Wp7 is getting ridiculous now
vangrieg

This is not for data charges. This is because external images in emails are used by spammers to verify validity of addresses. When you open an html email with <img> tags and view images, your address can be instantly identified as one belonging to a real person. I'm really tired of tech blogs repeating the same nonsense one after another without thinking.

Surur

As mentioned in the article, tracking images are well known. On the desktop this situation is managed by a white list, and there is no reason this could not be implemented on a phone also. After all, when you do decide to view the images, you have activated the tracking images also, so either they bar it completely, or give the user who do not care that Amazon knows their email address is real the option of seeing Amazon’s latest deals without a long wait for the images to download.

vangrieg

You still wait for the images to download because this restriction is not for the images embedded in the email, but those linked to externally!

Besides, there _are_ security risks as html emails are shown in a browser control. If you recall how the first iPhone jailbreak was made, it used a vulnerability in Safari with specially formed TIFF images which allowed to run arbitrary code to get privilege escalation.

So it's not a blessing when viewing images is enabled by default. Tracking would probably be nice, but calling blocking images by default "killing HTML email" is way over the top. You tap on a button and get them. One second of a difference between this and downloading everything from everywhere.

Sorry, but this is sensationalism at its worst.

http://intensedebate.com/people/martinschmidler martinschmidler

You may be right with the security issues (in the other comment) but spammers ? Are you serious?? I haven't had spam emails for years now, thanks to Hotmail (and prior Gmail) – technologies for filtering. Really. – You also say that one only needs to tap a button to get the images, do you have a dev device or can anybody else confirm this?

http://intensedebate.com/profiles/vangrieg vangrieg

Re spam – yes, I'm serious. Neither gmail nor hotmail are perfect, so some spam mails do get through. What's worse though is that they're even less perfect at recognizing legitimate emails, so I get quite a few false positives and therefore have to check the spam boxes every once in a while. That's certainly enough for me to be cautious and object to downloading all images automatically.

Re dev device – no, I don't have one. But why would it be different? Historically, that's how all mail clients including Outlook in WM behaved – there was no refetching of messages, just downloading the images. Technically, there's absolutely no point in downloading messages to show external images as the latter aren't stored on the mail server by definition! You would only need to refetch messages if the images are attached to the message.

Would whitelisting be nice? Yes, but a) it wouldn't make things easier for my mom; b) there are more important features missing in WP7 so I'd rather they concentrate on those; c) people need to stop behaving like it's the end of the world, WP7 is crippled and MS kill HTML email.

In WM, the "Tap to scroll right" thing is horrible, but it seems to be gone. Tapping once to view images is not a big deal. Really.
Max

Usual whining about Microsoft. I am grateful that I won't be downloading spammers' pictures, thank you very much.

Durishin

Max,

Do you open spam?

http://intensedebate.com/profiles/vangrieg vangrieg

When you open a message and read it, you can close it and go to the message list, or go to next message. That next message can be spam.

adamucf

Haha. brandon responded.

@BrandonWatson – Lots of tweets to me about the email issue in #wp7. You can open pictures. Email DLs only a certain amount so as to not kill your bandwidth.

P.S… you guys are idiots… MS is doing it the right way. Maybe they'll add a white list or auto accept from your contacts but this is no big deal.