GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 692542
never loading images in HTML e-mails is a bad default setting
Last modified: 2013-01-25 18:19:34 UTC
By default Evolution doesn't download images from the Internet in HTML e-mails. I don't think this is a good decision. Most other e-mail clients such as Thunderbird and Microsoft Outlook do download images from HTML e-mails by default, as far as I know. Why should Evolution be different? The current default setting makes life difficult for users: they have to figure out they have to change the setting for it in the Preferences dialog. When they open an e-mail they can see a lot of missing images and have no clue why this happens. I understand this is default was probably chosen for security reasons. If security prevents a change of the default to always downloading images, I suggest a good compromise for a new default: ask the user for permission to download the images every time (s)he opens an HTML e-mail with images.
Images are a Ctrl-I keypress away. Automatic image downloading is how spammers find out they got a live email address. Most email clients I've used disable image loading by default, and for good reason.
Okay, then I understand. However, keyboard shortcuts are too complex for novice users. And this is the first time I ever hear of this shortcut, and I've been using Evolution for years. Besides Ctrl+I, why not place a button somewhere in the e-mail viewer which allows the user to give permission to download images if an HTML e-mail contains them? That makes the command under Ctrl+I a lot easier to discover.