This is a second post on the subject of spam protection. You can check the previous post clicking here: Fighting Spam I

The top 5 rules to protect from spam are:

Number 1: Do what you can to avoid having your email address out on the net

There are products called “spam spiders” or “spam bots” that search the Internet for email addresses to send email to. If you are interested, do a search on “spam spider” and you will be amazed at what you get back. Interestingly enough, there is a site, WebPoison.org, which is an open source project geared to fight Internet “spam bots” and “spam spiders“, by giving them bogus HTML web pages, which contain bogus email addresses.

A couple suggestions for you:

A) Use form emails, which can hide addresses or also

B) Use addresses like sales@company.com instead of your full address to help battle the problem.

C) There are also programs that encode your email, like jsGuard, which encodes your email address on web pages so that spam spiders will find it difficult or impossible to read your email address.

Number 2: Get a spam blocking software

There are many programs out there for this. Check the available PC Software Protection Programs. Whatever you do, get the software. It will save you time. The software is not foolproof, but they really do help. You usually have to do some manual set up to block certain types of email.

Number 3: Use the multiple email address approach

If you must subscribe to newsletters, then have a “back-up” email address, using free email addresses. It would be like giving your cell phone number to your best friends and the business number to everyone else.

Number 4: Never open attachments from people you don’t know

A common problem with spam is that they have attachments and attachments can have viruses. Corporations often have filters that don’t let such things pass to you. Personal email is far more “open country” for spammers. General rule of thumb: if you do not know who is sending you something, DO NOT OPEN THE ATTACHMENT. Secondly, look for services that offer filtering. Firewall Vendors offer this type of service as well.

Number 5: Email services now have spam baskets

If what you use currently does not support this, think about moving to a new vendor. The concept is simple. If you know someone, they can send you emails. If you don’t know them or it is unsolicited email, then you can check it as “spam” and it will be filtered accordingly. Spam Blocking software has this concept as well, but having extra layers seems critical these days, so it is worth looking into.

Check Online all of The PC Protection Software available to have a complete protection of your computer.

Related posts:

1. Fighting Spam I
2. How To Protect Your Computer System
3. What is "phishing"?
4. The Top Threats A Computer User Should Not Ignore
5. How to Protect Your Child When Using the Internet