Banish spam - 10 easy ways

Spam is a menace, whether it’s unwanted adverts or something more sinister like fraudulent mails attempting to con you into handing over your personal login details. Thankfully there are ways of keeping to a minimum the amount of spam that gets through to your mailbox

Avoid giving out your email
Keep away from websites that publicly display your email
address and check companies’ privacy policies prior to signing
up with them. Always say no to them selling on your address to third parties.

Use a dedicated address
If you can’t avoid giving out your email address, a compromise is to create a dedicated email address for any junk to fall into. A web-based one like Hotmail (www.live.com) is a good bet.

Don’t unsubscribe
Many emails will provide you with a link to click to supposedly unsubscribe from their newsletters. Be careful which email links you click, in case it’s simply a means for spammers to verify your address.

Use a junk filter
Most email clients – including Windows Mail, Thunderbird and Outlook - have built-in spam filters. Take the time to set these up – most have default settings to save you time and effort.

Train your anti-spam tool
All anti-spam tools require a little help to spot what’s wanted and what isn’t – take the time to train yours as you go along. The more effort you make now, the less you’ll need later.

Leave automatic filtering off
Clients like Thunderbird start life by simply marking suspicious-looking messages with a flame icon, enabling you to decide if that message is spam or not. As you filter through its findings, the program improves to the point you’ll feel comfortable letting it handle the junk automatically.

Monitor your junk folders
Spam filters can be notoriously inaccurate. Regularly check your junk mail filter and add legitimate email senders to your allowed or “white” list.

Block all mail
A drastic solution is to try blocking all mail by default unless the sender confirms they wish to send you mail. Try Comodo AntiSpam (www.comodoantispam.com) which is free and asks people not in your contacts list to authenticate their mail with a passcode before it’s sent on.

Filter mail at the mail server
If you’d prefer to manually check your mail instead of relying on a spam filter, install PopTray (www.poptray.org), which enables you to preview the mail before you download it, so unwanted mail can be deleted without getting close to your PC.

Don’t over-react
Most spam messages appear to be from email addresses, but they’re not. Spammers find it easy to mask (or “spoof”) the actual address the message is sent from. Remember that, before clicking Reply to take someone to task.