Outlook 2003 (with Service Pack 2) Links Blocker
Today I’ve got an email with the message “Your web site is better than others”. I’m very happy with this. By the chance I want to visit the comment link in the email, I discovered a very exciting security feature of Outlook 2003 (with Service Pack 2).
If the email message is from an address not in the “Safe Senders List”, Outlook 2003 (with Service Pack 2) will block the links in the message. If we click the links, Outlook does not start Internet Explorer to access the URL, but pops up a dialog box (Figure 1).
Figure 1
In order to be able to visit links directly from Outlook 2003 (with Service Pack 2), we need to “unblock” them. Note the information bar above the recipient email address (Figure 2). Click it, and then we will see a context menu with 3 options.
1. Turn on Links (not recommended)
This is to simply unblock the links in the email message. Microsoft doesn’t recommend this because not all customers know the links in emails may be unsafe.
2. Add Sender to Safe Senders List
This option is to add the specific sender, in this case, “postmaster at msmvps.com”, to the Safe Senders List. If we select this option, links in future emails from this email address will not be blocked.
3. Add the Domain @msmvps.com to the Safe Senders List
This option is similar to the second one, but adds the whole domain to the Safe Senders List. If we select this option, links in future emails from any address of the “msmvps.com” domain will not be blocked.
Figure 2