But if everybody switched to (say) Eudora, so would the virus writers. Other programs may or may not be intrinsically better, but they're just not a big enough target.

Perhaps not. I've been using the old freeware version of Eudora for email, because it can't read HTML or scripts. Everything just comes through as text. I don't see how you could possibly get a virus through it, as long as one didn't open attachments.

Peter.