Resolved Thunderbird Emoticons

Would anyone have any idea as to why email messages with smilies sent through Thunderbird arrive in my Outlook Express and in my friends Gmail account with the smilies appearing as symbols rather than in the way they should like ? The smilies appear perfect in the Thunderbird 'sent' box but arrive in plain text in both Gmail and Outlook Express. I don't know if this is a Thunderbird issue or an Outlook Express one.

Thank you.

 

This seems to be the answer:

Thunderbird smileys are not images, they are code. Thunderbird converts this to an image, however anyone who is not using Thunderbird will only see as their software does not recognise the Thunderbird specific "moz-smiley..." code, and therefore ignores it.

 

Yep, and no offence meant, no one should be able to foist unknown graphics or code into my system.