WWW.LaMonica.Net
The Following Copyrighted material is republished with permission from MailWasher.net
Items 18 and 19 refer to the use of the Mail Washer program. While this is not an endorsement for MailWasher, and there is no connection of any kind between WWW.LaMonica.Net and WWW.MailWasher.NET (link fixed), I have to say since using MailWasher the number of SPAMs I get daily has dropped by 93%. Any association you make with MailWasher is entirely up to you.
Spam is every bit as unwelcome as circulars in your post box or telemarketers who call at meal times. Fortunately there are ways to decrease or eliminate the amount of spam you receive in your daily email.
Why is spam bad?
1. Theft of resources - The amount of time it takes to filter out
unwanted email from legitimate email stops you doing other
productive things.
2. The receiver pays - You pay for receiving spam, through your online
charges and time.
3. You never asked for it - it is an invasion of your privacy.
4. It's garbage.
5. The offerings are most probably fraudulent or illegal.
Tips
The following are straight forward tips to help you overcome or prevent spam and viruses in your email.1. Be private. Do not give out your email address in the first place. In many instances if you are required to give your email address in order to receive something off a website, give an email address that you have set up specifically to receive junk.
2. You can also set up a fake email address at such places as www.hotmail.com or www.yahoo.com , these email accounts are free.3. Look for options to opt out of receiving promotional mailings when you have to give your address.
4. Treat every email you preview as being of a suspicious nature, many harmless looking emails with attachments may contain viruses. Many people succumbed to the "I love you" email that contained a virus. Use MailWasher to preview your emails by double clicking on the email.5. When you receive a forwarded email asking for help or money from someone, and in return you will have eternal good luck (or bad luck if you don't forward it). Do not forward it on, it is likely to be a hoax and is a great way for spammers to cultivate email addresses. Many virus warning emails are a hoax as well.
6. When forwarding emails to groups of people, send them via the BCC field, this shields their address from others. Ask others to send emails to you this way too.7. Use the filters function to filter out unwanted emails that do, or do not meet certain criteria - further info on how to use the filters properly is below.
8. Keep your name off mailing lists, chat rooms and newsgroups by not giving out your correct address in the first place.9. If your email address is on a website, ask your web designer to transform it in to a picture. Otherwise it is very easy for automated 'robots' to come and cultivate your email address and put it on to a mailing list. But if it is displayed as a picture then it won't be recognizable as an email address to the 'robot'.
10. Many spam messages have instructions at the bottom of the message asking you to reply to the message if you want to be removed from their mailing list. Don't do this, as it will only confirm that your address is valid and active and you will most likely be hit with more spam. Use MailWasher to bounce the message back to the spammer so it looks as though your address is not valid.11. Check the email address of the sender - do you recognize it? If not, then double click on the header in MailWasher and you will see a preview of the email.
12. Watch out for fake headers. These are in the subject line and are commonly - 'Dear Friend.....' or 'Here's the information you requested.'13. Never buy anything from a spammer's email, even if it is something you want as it is likely to be fraudulent.
14. You can complain to the spammers internet service provider by sending an email to abuse@[The domain in particular] or postmaster@[The domain in particular].15. Don't reply to contests in your email, offers of free websites or send money to anti-spam organizations as it will most likely be a hoax.
16. Don't submit your address to Opt-out or removal lists as these are a hoax and you will end up getting more spam.17. It is still advisable to have antivirus software installed on your computer. While you may be able to recognize an email with a strange attachment, a picture or word document may harbor a virus.
18. Use MailWasher to delete any unwanted emails directly off your internet service providers server before you receive them.19. Use the blacklist function in MailWasher to instantly recognize previous spammers or to delete the message off the server instantly.
20. Finally, one option that will get rid of the spam (for a while) is to change your email address. It may take some time to notify others of your new address, but at least you will not get spam.
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