Re: Word and Happy99 and things

[Peter Evans peterev@xxxxxxxx]

At 11:48 AM 3/27/99 +0100, you wrote:



Having just followed the link in Peter Evans' last mail I have discovered all about viruses spread by Microsoft Word. . . .



Then *Computer Virus Myths* must have changed a bit since I last looked at it--when it talked about trojans and the like in Word macros, but not about viruses. (Sorry I can't check now: the WWW has slowed to a crawl.)



I ass-u-me that such a thing is technically impossible

with XyWrite because our files are just ASCII files.



Huh? Yes, if you use XyWrite to write pure ASCII with no commands, you'll get pure ASCII. But merely by (for example) italicizing a single word, you're introducing non-ASCII.



So, apart from having the best word processor for all the reasons

we know and love, do we not in fact have the safest word processor?



Eh? Rather, we have one for which people have little incentive (or fewer people have incentive) to write malicious software. Word is used by millions, Microsoft is hated by thousands. Xy is used by thousands, TTG is of course loved by all who know it. If the market share were reversed, I daresay somebody would write gigantic XPL programs that would have nasty little routines hidden away in them.



>So shouldn't they fix the ruddy bugs in XyWrite?



They *are* fixing the bugs. After all, here's what they say on their web site (or said, the last time I checked):



>We constantly work to improve our products

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Peter Evans