7 Steps to Avoid Spam
Do you hate spam as much as most people? No, I don’t mean the food, I mean the constant torrent of unwanted junk emails you get everyday.
Of course I have no doubt you’re familiar with this computer terminology.
These emails varies from interest rates to enlarging various body parts, to pornography, and their numbers grow every day. Some experts estimate that junk email counts for over 90% of all emails!
Spam is named after an old Monty Python sketch which took place in a diner where you can only buy spam. Conversation is drowned out by some obnoxiously loud vikings who sing about how lovely spam is. Years later, this reminded someone of how email in your inbox can get lost in all of the junk mail, so they called it spam and the name stuck.
It can be hard to avoid getting your email address on somebody’s list. It’s pretty typical for many to receive 50 to 100 pieces of spam in a single day – I know some people who get over 300 a day! And the problem is growing worse.
Hapily here are a few tips for people to limit the amount of spam they get. Here are a few tips:
*{Don’t risk trying to unsubscribe or ask to be taken off the list. Those emails may have a link or a reply address to unsubscribe, but 90% either just don’t work, or you’re just telling the spammers that they’ve got a live one.
*Never order anything you see in junk email, visit the website, or in any way respond to the ad. Spammers send out millions of emails at a time, and it costs them almost nothing. Even just clicking a link in one of those emails is enough to encourage them to send even more.
*Try to avoid entering your email address on websites as much as possible. If you do, consider getting a second email account with Gmail or a similar service. So you keep your real address more hidden.
Many websites offering contests, joke lists, free greeting cards, etc. harvest and sell your email address.
*Never sign an online guestbook. As an experiment I recently created a new email address and entered it on about five guestbooks I found with a Google search. Within 24 hours I was getting spam, and it grew to dozens a day within a week.
* Spammers can send out special messages that “phone home” and let them know when they’re opened. So if your email client has a “work offline” option (often found in the file menu) select it before opening dubious emails. You can also disconnect from the internet completely, but unless you are still trapped in the backwaters of dialup, this may involve unplugging connectors. Really, the best option is to use the “offline” feature of your email program.
Gmail, you won’t be able to go offline in this way~You can’t go offline when you use a web-based email service~It’s impossible to use web-based email services offline}. Check your mail options for a setting to turn off graphics in emails, or to display mail in plain text only. Turn on anything to do with blocking remote images.
These steps can help keep the spammers from knowing you’ve opened the message.
*Avoid forwarding emails to large numbers of people.
Not everyone realizes that when you forward a message, the email addresses of everyone who receives the message is visible to every person who reads it. If any of the recipients is a spammer, or if one of a friend’s computer is infected by certain viruses, they can harvest all of those addresses, including yours.
If you do send an email to multiple people, you can avoid revealing email addresses by entering addresses in the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) area instead of To or CC. This will hide the list of addresses from everyone else.
If you’re sending a message from somebody on to others, you should copy and paste just the message into a new email window rather than hitting the forward button — this trims the message down and protects the privacy of others.
*To deal with the spam you already receive, most email applications allow you to create “filters” or “rules” that move incoming email into a specified folder or even right into the trash.
Setting filters up can be complicated, but the newer versions of many email programs, including Mozilla Thunderbird and Mac OS X Mail make it much easier.
The programs recognize patterns in spam, and use your address book as a white list of legit senders. You can use a click to clear junk. The more spam you mark, the better the program gets at automatically taking care of them. Your inbox will end up much less full of junk.
Many internet providers also provide a spam filter which blocks email before it gets to your computer. The problem with this is that they often block legitimate mail and you may never know about it.
Because of this, I recommend using filtering software on your own computer, such as the two programs I just mentioned.~*Never order anything advertised in spam, visit the website, or in any way answer the ad. It costs almost nothing for a spammer to send out thousands of emails. Even just clicking a link in one of those emails is enough to encourage them to send even more.
*Never try to unsubscribe or ask to be removed. Those emails may include a link or a reply address to unsubscribe, but most either just don’t function, or you’re just telling the spammers that they’ve got a live one.
* You must avoid signing online guest books like the plague. As an experiment I recently created a new email address and entered it on about five guestbooks I found with a Google search. Within 24 hours I was getting spam, and it grew to dozens a day within a week.
*Try to avoid entering your email address on websites as much as possible. If you do, consider getting a second email account with Yahoo mail or a similar service. That way, you can enter that address instead of your main one.
Many websites offering contests, joke lists, free greeting cards, etc. invade your privacy by sharing your address with other spammers.
* The act of opening some junk email alerts the spammer, so they know they have a live one. So if your email application has a “work offline” option (You’ll often locate this in the File menu) select it before opening suspect emails. You can also disconnect from the internet completely, but unless you are still stuck using dialup, this may involve unplugging wires. The best option is to use the “offline” feature of your email program.
Windows Live Mail, you won’t be able to go offline in this way~You can’t go offline when you use a web-based email service~It’s impossible to use web-based email services offline}. Check your mail options for a setting to turn off graphics in emails, or to display mail in plain text only. The wording varies from site to site, but the option to turn on will say something like “block remote images” or something similar.
These steps can help keep the spammers from knowing you’ve opened the message.
*To deal with the spam you already receive, most email programs allow you to create “filters” or “rules” that move incoming email into a specified folder or even right into the trash.
Setting filters up can be complicated, but the newer versions of many email applications, including Mozilla Thunderbird and Mac OS X Mail make it much easier.
The programs recognize patterns in spam, and use your address book as a white list of legit senders. Junk that shows up can be marked as spam with a click. The more spam you mark, the better the program gets at automatically taking care of them. You’ll end up with less junk mail than before.
Many internet providers also provide a spam filter which blocks email before it gets to your computer. The problem with this is that they often block legitimate mail and you may never know about it.
Because of this, I recommend using filtering software on your own computer, such as the two programs I just mentioned.
*Avoid forwarding emails to large numbers of people.
Not everyone realizes that when you forward a message, the email addresses of everyone who receives the message is visible to every person who reads it. If any of the recipients is a spammer, or if one of a friend’s computer is infected by certain viruses, they can harvest all of those addresses, including yours.
If you do send an email to multiple people, you can avoid revealing email addresses by entering addresses in the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) area instead of To or CC. This will hide the list of addresses from everyone else.
If you’re sending a message from somebody on to others, you should copy and paste just the message into a new email window rather than hitting the forward button — this trims the message down and protects the privacy of others.}
Ultimately, spam is a fact of modern life, and it’s next to impossible to avoid all of it, mostly because of what other people are doing with your email. If your current email address is about to collapse from the amount of spam you get, you might be forced to get a new one.
After that, if you follow the suggestions and free computer tips above, you’ll have a good chance of keeping it under control.
