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Getting Rid of Spam
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Spam Spam Spam - If you are having problems with spam then there are a number of ways to beat it.
Don't give out your e-mail address
Unless it is to your friends and family, of course. There are lots of websites where you are asked to enter your email address. Most of these are respectable and don't pass the address on to spammers, but why take the risk? Also you might be tempted to join mailing lists or post messages.
The answer is: Don't use your own email address. You can get free web based email addresses at places like Yahoo! Mail and MSN Hotmail which you can use instead of your private email address. You can also get free POP3 emails which you can use instead of your "main" address.
There is also a great free service we have found that can help to reduce spam: http://mailnull.com. With MailNull, you can give out a separate temporary email address to every company which asks you for one and so keep an eye on who might be selling your email address! Any mail sent to that address will be sent on to your own email address. Another free service is Guerrilla Mail www.guerrillamail.com (yes it is a bit like war!). This company provides disposable e-mail addresses which expire after 15 minutes. Great if you only intend to use a service once.
Don't ever reply to spam emails
They will just send you a lot more!
Don't expose your email address on the internet
This is a big no no. Spammers trawl the web using "robots" looking for these email addresses and you will be spammed. If you have a website there are several ways to mask your email address. Here are a couple of them.
1. Email obfuscation. There are several places you can do this and the one we like is from Tim Williams. Simply type your email address in the box shown, type in what you want it to say (e.g. email me) and press "obfuscate my email address". You then copy and paste the whole of the code into the source code of your html document at the place you want the contact invitation to appear.
2. You can use a graphic of your email address with no email link at all. It is up to your reader to type your email address into their email client.
Complain to your ISP
Forward any offending emails onto your ISP. Most ISPs have their own anti-spam filtering systems and are always looking to improve performance. You can also register (free) with Spamcop.net and report instances of spamming. Report an email and they send warning information to the ISP responsible for hosting the services used by the spammer. Every little helps.
Spam Filtering Software
There are lots of spam filtering programs on the market - type "spam filtering program" into Google to see several results.
One such company is www.spamjab.com which has a system designed specifically to protect families, in particular children, from inappropriate and unsolicited email. It was developed in 2003 by a team of Cambridge email experts with the original aim of protecting children. The service was launched in November of that year and then expanded to support small businesses as well as families. There is no software to download and install; just a simple registration process that takes only 5 minutes. For small businesses there are a number of options including smtp and pop support.
There are also free online spam blocking services such as the SpamCop DNS-based blocking list. This is an automatic list of sites sending email that has been reported as spam and you canfigure your mailserver to refect mail based on the blocklist.
Change Your Email Address
If you are inundated with spam at present, then really the only thing you can do is change your email address and delete your current one. I know this a nuisance - you have to tell all your contacts, change details on any online accounts you are signed up for like bank, credit cards, Amazon etc., etc. - but it is the only way to become spam free. Email addresses are fairly easy to come by. You will probably find that your ISP allows you to add new ones and delete old ones. If not, you can find one from our list of Free Pop Email Addresses and Free Web Mail Addresses.
Email Client Settings
If you do not want to get rid of your email address then there are things you can do to make life easier. Most email clients have "Message Rules" that enable you to filter your incoming mail.
Outlook Express settings
It is easy to use, all you do is click 'Tools', then 'Message Rules' and then 'Mail'. Then click the 'New' button and you will get a box come up with 4 sections. In these you can specify various actions you want Outlook Express to take automatically when you get your mail. For instance you can have any email with 'Viagra' in the subject line put straight into the deleted items folder!
Lets do that as an example, so in section 1 you would click the box next to the second item named 'When the Subject line contains specific words', then in section 2 click the box next to the third item named 'Delete it'. Once you have done that, the 3rd section will now have a hyperlink in blue saying 'contains specific words'. Click this hyperlink and type in Viagra and then click the Add button. Then click the OK button and you should find that the next time you get your messages, if Viagra is in the Subject line then it will automatically be shunted into the deleted items folder without even hitting your inbox!.
Another useful option is to have emails from specific email addresses placed automatically in a specific folder. To do this click 'Tools', 'Message Rules' 'Mail' then click the 'New' button as before to get the box come up with the 4 sections. In section 1 this time click the box next to the top item 'Where the From line contains people'. In section 2 click the first item 'Move it to the specified folder' and then you will see 2 blue hyperlinks in section 3. Click the first of these 'contains people' and type in the email address (you can also use the Address book button on the right if they are in that). and click the Add button. Then click the 2nd blue hyperlink in section 3 to choose the folder you want the email moved to. Then click the OK button. Now every email from that person will automatically be place in that folder. 
There are load of other useful options, for instance you could stop any emails with certain words in the main body of the email etc etc. It is well worth a play with this if you are having problems with spam. I began to realise why spammers misspell names or leave spaces. They sometimes type V iagra with a space so the message gets through but you could always put 'iagra' instead and get rid of those too! After a few days I've managed to get 90% of my spam straight into the deleted items folder.
Thunderbird Settings
This is very similar to Outlook Express (see above). Click "Tools" and then "Message Filters". Click "New" to insert filters.
As you can see there are several options such as copy or move to other folders, change priority, set to junk status and so on. The best way to learn how to use this is to play around with it!
