Spybot immunize, IE 7 and Outlook HTML email

[Rosenfeld]

I came across this link, which may be of interest to some users of Spybot who have IE 7 on Windows XP and use Outlook:

http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?p=152814

in particular the post by Jim Eshelman. I quote the beginning of his post here as it explains better what the problem is that has been encountered:

QUOTE
Since early March many people worldwide are experiencing extreme slows in typing or editing or opening

HTML emails

on Outlook 2003

with IE7 installed

on Windows XP (all SP2?)

Remove any of the above factors and the problem goes away. For example, it doesn't happen if you upgrade to Outlook 2007, if you're using Windows Vista, or if you switch out of HTML.

We're zeroing in on an understanding. I wanted to pass along what we've discovered. Here is what we presently believe the problem to be:

Internet Explorer 7 changed the way that the Restricted Zone is implemented.

A heavily populated Restricted Zone will dramatically slow some functions because each entry will be checked frequently.

Several popular anti-malware and other security products (e.g., SpywareBlaster, SpyBot S&D, IE-SpyAd) heavily populate the Restricted Zone.

All Outlook versions before 2007 use IE as the rendering engine for HTML emails. (Outlook 2007 uses Word 2007 as its rendering engine for HTML emails, even if Word is not the actual composer.)

Therefore, every character typed in an HTML email - with the above four criteria - potentially will check thousands of Registry entries (in the Restricted Zone) for every character that is typed. (SpyBot, for example, currently adds about 3,000 items to the Restricted Zone if Immunization is turned on. Other programs may add even more.)

BOTTOM LINE: IE7's new way of handling Restricted Zone items, combined with programs that heavily populate the Restricted Zone will overburden HTML text processing when IE7 is used as the rendering engine. (It isn't clear whether these third party programs might be able to avert the problem by approaching IE's new Zones differently, or whether this is simply a bug in IE7. I think it is at least a design flaw in IE7, but I might eventually be proven wrong on that point.)

END QUOTE

He goes on to offer workarounds.

Although Outlook 2003 is specifically mentioned, I have found the same in Outlook 2002/XP. If I have the restricted zone heavily populated trying to compose an email in HTML format becomes almost impossible because of lags. Clearing the restricted zone, the problem disappears. I normally use plain text format (which is OK).


Question for Spybot developers: Were you aware of this, if so are you planning to modify Spybot's immunize feature?

[Rosenfeld]

I should have read the other threads about this before posting, apologies for redundancy