Problem with links in newsletters

Hello Mark and John!
This is actually a newsletter that comes as an email. I open it and read its contents. Within the newsletter, there are quite a few links to different things. When I click on them, they open IE8. I am able to read this same newsletter online (with Firefox) and when I click on the links, a new tab in Firefox opens. It doesn't open IE. Go figure!

I receive many newsletters each month and when I click on links in those other newsletters, they open in Firefox, without any problems.

I hope this info helps.

When you view the newsletter in a browser, the browser opens any/all links that it can. However, email clients generally cannot open such links, resulting in the look-up of the appropriate browser based on the application layer protocol and the OS's file association settings. Thus, your added information seems to confirm the hypothesis, but the necessary details (URL comparisons) to pinpoint the issue are still absent.

John

Thanks for the reply, John and sorry for not getting back sooner but I was away from home - no puter use!

Anyway, your comment "email clients generally cannot open such links, resulting in the look-up of the appropriate browser based on the application layer protocol and the OS's file association settings", doesn't make any sense to me at all. What do you mean by "email clients"? Am I the email "client"? The beginning part of that sentence is totally confusing - "application layer protocol"?

Please keep it simple, John. I can open, and read, all sorts of newsletters in my email program, with links in them and when I click on them they open in Firefox. ALL except with this one newsletter. It is the only one that opens links in IE8.

Sorry about the confusion; I occasionally revert back to my native language of Geek, forgetting my English.

To clarify, the email client is the program that you use to open the email. This may be Internet Explorer or another browser if you visit a website to check your email, but is often a separate program such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, etc. Such programs cannot open a website themselves, instead launching your browser for that purpose. Which browser is launched depends on the program's settings and your operating system's settings, which are also dependent on the link you click. For instance, Windows may be set to open HTTP websites in Firefox, but HTTPS websites in Internet Explorer. Such settings are more granular and more hidden in Windows Vista due to the limited times you'd want to access them.

To tell if my hypothesis is correct, though, we'd need to see one of the links you clicked on in the newsletter. By comparing it to the link in another newsletter, we'd know if it's the application layer protocol I referenced before or if we should be looking elsewhere.

Let us know.
John

Thanks, John! I use Incredimail Premium for my email program and have never opened emails with a browser (except my online email programs like Yahoo and Hotmail). Now that new people own Incredimail,the way things are done has changed drastically so I am back to using it - in Vista and will definitely use it in Windows 7.

About the links you need to compare, do you want me to just post one of them here? They usually have words like "click here to ...". Would you like me to add the url after the link?

How would I check to see how Windows Vista has the HTTP or HTTPS websites setup? Or is it how Firefox and IE8 are set up?

I hope to check back with this thread before the w/end - company arriving on Friday from out of town and they will be here for the week. Computer use might be limited. Thanks, Barbara

The problem seems to have solved itself! I have no idea what has changed but now I am able to click on the links in that certain newsletter and they open in Firefox. IE8 doesn't open them at all and I hope it continues that way! Thanks.