I had a task to convert Chef Raymond's NSC work PC from Windows 7 Home Premium (what it came with) to Windows 7 Enterprise so it would be the same as the other PC in the center. For some unknown reason he had been using Incredimail for his email. (An email client is a program running on you computer that manages your email, i.e., send, receive, store, file, store, etc. Other popular email clients are Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Windows Live Mail, and the most popular business choice, Microsoft Outlook.)
I saved all of the Chef's email in a folder, but Incredimail does not have an 'export' function, e.g., once you have your mail 'in' Incredimail, it's hard to get it out. (AOL has the same problem.) The mail format is not recognized by anything else than Incredimail. I found some programs that claimed they could convert them mail to a common format, but $50 to $100 is not what I wanted to spend.
Therefore, I decided to install a copy of Incredimail on my PC to try other methods, maybe even just email myself copies to a different email account. *Bad* decision!
So I ran the Incredimail install program. Just a couple of prompts - do I want to change my browser home page to MySearch - NO. Do I want to change my seach engine to MySearch - NO. Do I want the MySearch toolbar - NO. Install.
Guess what? The home pages on all *three* of my browsers got changed, IE, Firefox, and Chrome. All *three* had their seach engine changed. And it installed the toolbar. It also installed two addition programs and two icons it didn't even ask about. That alone is enough for me to blacklist any program. But it got worse.
Ran the program. Hmmm, it didn't ask, but it accessed my GMail. Thinking about it now ... it must have also stolen my GMail password as it never asked for it. So I imported Raymond's mail and could read it inside Incredimail. No, can't click and drag. No, can't save email in a separate file. No easy way to get it out. Gave up and put it aside, had to go to work.
Tonight, fired up my copy Outlook to check my email. WTF? *
All* my email in my GMail inbox is *
Gone*! All the email in the NSCSeniorSurfers GMail is *
Gone*! In fact, in the three Gmail accounts I monitor all the inboxes have been
emptied - Incredimail downloaded it and
erased them.
And, as we now know, once in Incredimail, it never comes out.
So, bottom line Incredimail is worse than AOL. It lies, cheats and steals. A system restore got back most of program settings it screwed with, and thankfully GMail saves everything in a 'All Mail' folder. We didn't lose anything, it's just much harder to find.
