Pegasus Mail & Mercury

This is the public announcement of a new HTML renderer for replacing the current one ("BearHtml") for those of you feeling comfortable enough for using an Internet Explorer based version. As I know it will be very controversial here are my reasons for developing such a tool:

1. The current renderer has lots of limitations with regard to handling up-to-date HTML sources including crashes.
2. The complexity of HTML makes is almost impossible to keep up with current developments for non-corporate developers.
3. Internet Explorer comes with Windows and I'm far more familiar with its development interface than with any other browser engine's.
4. Nevertheless it might be possible that there'll be WebKit (Safari, Chrome) or Gecko (Mozilla, Firefox) based renderers in the future as well.
5. I've taken care to enable the most secure options available with IE's browser engine by default and add most of the features provided by BearHtml.
   

Please note that this replacement comes with an installer which creates a backup of the current renderer that can even be used alternatively if you'd want to switch back and forth between the current and the new renderer. Uninstalling the new renderer will restore the previous state, but you need to take care if updating Pegasus Mail or BearHtml as this will overwrite the IE Control installation so you would need to reinstall it afterwards.

It also implements a user interface including a toolbar button and a menu (see screenshot below) which enable you to access optional settings and help resources without having to memorize certain keyboard shortcuts. As can be seen by its version history on the download page it already underwent lots of testing, fixing and enhancements, but as only a small number of testers was involved there might still be issues to solve which should be reported to this forum.

PS: This renderer cannot be installed on any Windows 9x (up to ME) system or NT based sytems prior to Windows 2000 / XP with at least Internet Explorer 6!

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Michael

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PGP Key ID (RSA 2048): 0xC45D831B
PGP Plugin for Pegasus Mail: <http://www.pmpgp.de/pmpgp/>
S/MIME Certificate Fingerprint: 26 5c a3 60 02 c6 e3 8a 75 70 d5 6a 67 ff d3 8d b0 b5 5e 5b

Michael, I had no luck with this on my system:  after installation, PMail started but never properly loaded, had in the end to be stopped with Ctrl-Alt-Del.  I used the Windows uninstall you provided, and this worked very gracefully indeed, apparently leaving Martin's bearhtml back in place and working as before.

I wonder why your renderer didn't work.  My system:  Win XP 64-bit edition, PMail 4.52 running with PMDebug.exe, and there are two versions of IE6 (32-bit and 64-bit) available though rarely used.  I don't have IE7 or IE8. (Not quite clear to me from your posting whether your renderer needs at least IE6 or a later version of IE.)

best

David

David_himself:

I wonder why your renderer didn't work.  My system:  Win XP 64-bit edition, PMail 4.52 running with PMDebug.exe, and there are two versions of IE6 (32-bit and 64-bit) available though rarely used.  I don't have IE7 or IE8. (Not quite clear to me from your posting whether your renderer needs at least IE6 or a later version of IE.)

David,

if I understand correctly Pegasus Mail did not launch beyond the startup screen? Or did it stop even before?

IE 6 should be ok as it is the last version available for Windows 2000. But the installer would abort with an error message anyway if it isn't installed.

Oh well, tested on various 64bit versions and 2000/XP 32bit but not on XP 64bit unless testers didn't say so ... Of course there always has to be at least one case where it fails. David, If you'd be willing to go through some additional testing I'll create a logging version for you to find out what the issue is on your system, please send me an email (you should have my address).

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Michael

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PGP Key ID (RSA 2048): 0xC45D831B
PGP Plugin for Pegasus Mail: <http://www.pmpgp.de/pmpgp/>
S/MIME Certificate Fingerprint: 26 5c a3 60 02 c6 e3 8a 75 70 d5 6a 67 ff d3 8d b0 b5 5e 5b

Michael - I have replied privately.

David

Is the new renderer "safe"? In other words, does it ignore all executable content such as scripting languages, ActiveX and all the other technologies that can be exploited to deliver malware?

 

subelman:

Is the new renderer "safe"? In other words, does it ignore all executable content such as scripting languages, ActiveX and all the other technologies that can be exploited to deliver malware?

You can configure all this to the extent provided by the WebBrowser resp. MSHTML interface , by default these options are turned off; IOW: It depends on whether you're using the latest version plus patches, if any.

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Michael

--
PGP Key ID (RSA 2048): 0xC45D831B
PGP Plugin for Pegasus Mail: <http://www.pmpgp.de/pmpgp/>
S/MIME Certificate Fingerprint: 26 5c a3 60 02 c6 e3 8a 75 70 d5 6a 67 ff d3 8d b0 b5 5e 5b

David_himself:

I wonder why your renderer didn't work.  My system:  Win XP 64-bit edition, PMail 4.52 running with PMDebug.exe, and there are two versions of IE6 (32-bit and 64-bit) available though rarely used.

This issue has been fixed now, see details about the latest version.

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Michael

--
PGP Key ID (RSA 2048): 0xC45D831B
PGP Plugin for Pegasus Mail: <http://www.pmpgp.de/pmpgp/>
S/MIME Certificate Fingerprint: 26 5c a3 60 02 c6 e3 8a 75 70 d5 6a 67 ff d3 8d b0 b5 5e 5b

Hi Michael,
After a long time I actually had the first crash or freeze of PMail again. I pinpointed it to a specific email (same origin as the others I sent to you some time ago) and the crash could be reproduced; three times in a row. I still had 2.1.1.0 installed, crashed twice in preview. I installed the latest version 2.2.0.0 and crashed once in preview. I viewed it several times IER deactivated (under Bearhtml V. 4.6.9) and it did not crash. I will send you the message (CNM) as a zipped file.
As a side note. On my fairly old laptop, the IERenderer works noticeable faster than with Bearhtml.
Cheers
Thomas

Thomas-M. Stein:

After a long time I actually had the first crash or freeze of PMail again. I pinpointed it to a specific email (same origin as the others I sent to you some time ago) and the crash could be reproduced; three times in a row. I still had 2.1.1.0 installed, crashed twice in preview. I installed the latest version 2.2.0.0 and crashed once in preview.

Thanks to the enhanced capabilities of my debugger tool (to be published these days) I could easily figure out what was happening and fix the bug.

Thomas-M. Stein:

As a side note. On my fairly old laptop, the IERenderer works noticeable faster than with Bearhtml.

Surprisingly given the fact that it uses the whole lot of IE related libraries ...

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Michael

--
PGP Key ID (RSA 2048): 0xC45D831B
PGP Plugin for Pegasus Mail: <http://www.pmpgp.de/pmpgp/>
S/MIME Certificate Fingerprint: 26 5c a3 60 02 c6 e3 8a 75 70 d5 6a 67 ff d3 8d b0 b5 5e 5b

Another major update is available (not only) addressing some (UAC related) installer issues and a new vulnerability, for a complete list please go to the download page.

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Michael

--
PGP Key ID (RSA 2048): 0xC45D831B
PGP Plugin for Pegasus Mail: <http://www.pmpgp.de/pmpgp/>
S/MIME Certificate Fingerprint: 26 5c a3 60 02 c6 e3 8a 75 70 d5 6a 67 ff d3 8d b0 b5 5e 5b

idw:

Another major update is available (not only) addressing some (UAC related) installer issues and a new vulnerability, for a complete list please go to the download page.

A couple of remaining issues with the previous version have been fixed now, see the download page.

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Michael

--
PGP Key ID (RSA 2048): 0xC45D831B
PGP Plugin for Pegasus Mail: <http://www.pmpgp.de/pmpgp/>
S/MIME Certificate Fingerprint: 26 5c a3 60 02 c6 e3 8a 75 70 d5 6a 67 ff d3 8d b0 b5 5e 5b

How is it possible to download it? I keep getting:

 "

 

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-tOM

Aha, i need to have the RefControl active. This should be noted!

 

tOM

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-tOM

I'm not having any issues downloading from the link in the message - whether logged into the forums or not.  No setting has to be changed for me - what are you referring to?

tOM:

Aha, i need to have the RefControl active.

What is RefControl? And how are we supposed to know without being site admin?

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Michael

--
PGP Key ID (RSA 2048): 0xC45D831B
PGP Plugin for Pegasus Mail: <http://www.pmpgp.de/pmpgp/>
S/MIME Certificate Fingerprint: 26 5c a3 60 02 c6 e3 8a 75 70 d5 6a 67 ff d3 8d b0 b5 5e 5b