[brak1]

> Most if not all e-mail clients block images

Gmail auto preloads (via their servers) all images in emails. You can turn it off though.

(lots of sources on internet about this, http://www.guidingtech.com/13461/gmail-always-display-images... for example)

[gregmac]

I stand corrected. Must be a setting I changed at some point then, as I have it set to always ask.

It's a terrible setting, it should just be 'always ask'. Is there a legitimate use I'm missing? The only thing I can think of is for spammers to track if their spam went through, marketers of 'legit' mail to track the same thing, or a backdoor way to implement the atrocious 'read receipt' feature. None of those is at all beneficial to the user receiving the message.

[xanderstrike]

I was delighted when they changed it from "always ask" to "show by default." Like I said, Gmail never puts spam through to me, so it saves me clicks.

[craigds]

You still can't turn it off in Inbox, unfortunately.