Archive for November, 2008

Why Stop Spam?

When it comes to the safety of your computer, one of the best ways to ensure that you don't get one is to avoid getting and opening spam emails. Spam emails often contain viruses, worms, Trojans, and spyware that can potentially damage your computer to no ends or simply make using your computer extremely frustrating. There are however many different ways that you can combat spam and that is what this article is about.

If you are interested in stopping spam from ripping your computer to shreds, you can start by getting some general information on spam in the first place. You should also realize that there is more than one way that you can get trapped by spam. You can get much information about spam on the internet. This makes sense since it is through the internet that spam attacks you.

Peer to peer file sharing is probably one of the best ways to obtain any song you could ever want quickly and for FREE or cheap and it is also a great way to get a lot of spam. When thousands of people are connected to one file sharing program, the odds of finding any song are extraordinarily high. The music lover within you won't be disappointed nor will the movie lover either. Of course, the spasm that can come with registering for these programs is astounding. If this is something that you are interested in using any of the peer to peer programs you should do a lot of research on them first. Ares, and lime wire are relatively good programs that do not include much spam.

You can get spam from signing up and registering for newsletters and other things online as well. In fact, most spam emails that you will get are because of this reason. That is why it is best for you to use a free email address when you sign up for anything on email so that any spam that you will receive these spams in an email address that will not be used except to delete these emails. Also, it would be a good idea for you to avoid ever opening any of the spams that you receive as well. Opening them will eventually cause problems as well.

Most of the spams that you will get will contain a lot of spyware and adware. These will hurt your computer. Some of them include tracking devices in them that will give the sender the ability to track your movements on the internet. This includes any personal information that you may use like credit cards or social security numbers. You have to stop spam in its tracks if you want to be sure that you don't lose your computer because of them. That is just good sense.

Stop Spam From Hurting Your Computer

Your computer probably keeps your life running smoothly. We all use our computers for everything in our lives. We use them at work; we use them at home; to communicate with our friends and to simply entertain ourselves. Most of us pay a great deal for our computers and can't afford to have to reformat them all of the time. When we open spams that we get in our email inboxes we are basically playing roulette in that we never really know what we are getting.

Most spam emails are simply advertisements that are meant to get you to buy some product or service. Lots of them are harmless, however that does not mean that they are safe. Companies that send spams often come about your email address illegally. They are purchasing your email address from other companies' mailing lists since they are affiliated with that business. Other spammers are hackers who are seeking to destroy your computer. It is nearly impossible to get to know the difference from these people and that is why spam is so dangerous.

When you register with various companies, you are basically agreeing to receive emails from anyone that these companies choose to give your email address to. What is not commonly known is that many companies will sell their email lists to anyone who is willing to pay for them just to increase their profit potential. This is why you need to read the fine print in any registration that you sign up for. Another thing that you can do to protect yourself is to take advantage of email servers that offer spam blocking such as Yahoo, MSN and Hotmail which are free. You can use their services but also do not publish your email address if you can avoid it because that is how many spammers get it in the first place.

Opening spam emails is the worst thing that you can do. Since many of the spams that you will find in your inbox are simply the sender's attempt find out if your email address is legit or active it is pointless anyway. When you open the spam emails you are letting these people know that your email address is active and this will open you up to receiving even more of them. You should under no circumstances click on anything in these emails either. This means to even avoid clicking on the area that says that “if you want to avoid receiving these emails, click here”. Spam doesn't work like mail solicitations do. In snail mail you can call or write to be taken off of the list, but with spam the opposite will happen if you do that.

How File Sharing Can Cause Spam

File sharing has become an epidemic of its own in the past few years. The idea of getting something for nothing is simply too appealing to most of us. File sharing programs like Kazaa, Morpheus, and Ares are very popular as means of getting just about any music CD and DVD that is out there. Of course, you are basically just waiting to get stuck with some spam when you sign up with these. It’s a very simple process.

These free file sharing programs often make their profits and provide these services because they make trades or sell their registration lists (which include email addresses) to other companies etc. this is how they are able to provide you with all of that stuff you so like to download from them. Not to mention the fact that they do not monitor the programs that are being shared which may also contain problems in them.

Every time you register with the free file sharing programs your email address is sent to any number of people. The next thing that you know, you are getting thousands of spam in your inbox and have no idea how these people got your email address in the first place. Well, now you know. That is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to these programs. They are chalk full of things that can ruin your computer. And it all begins the moment that you register for them.

If you are thinking that you can avoid this spam by using the paid programs for file sharing, you are wrong. Even the paid versions of these programs sell their mailing lists to their affiliates who can sell them to hackers and spammers. It just goes to prove that you can’t get something for nothing. However you can avoid the major pains of these spammers by signing up for any number of the free email services that have spam blockers such as hotmail or Yahoo. Just don’t use them as your primary email and delete any emails from strangers or odd companies.

When you receive spam in your inbox, you have one of three options. You can ignore it and delete it, you can open it and delete it or you can open it and click the option at the bottom of the email to ask to be taken off of the list. The only one that makes sense is to delete it without opening it at all. The reason for this is that once you open a spam email, you are potentially risking ruining your computer. The reason for this is that some spam emails are nothing more than viruses.

Fight Spam with Email Exchange

There are so many different ways that you can choose to avoid getting spam that could potentially ruin your computer. You can use filters, blockers and various different programs that will help to keep spam from your account which just about every email service provider offers, or you can choose to go a completely different route which is perhaps the most innovative method out there today. This method is called email exchange.

Email exchange works a lot like disposable emails. What makes these email exchange addresses so useful in fighting spam is that once they receive a certain number of spams, these email addresses simply exchange themselves with another one. This may sound silly since you are probably wondering how this will benefit you since you have to likely change your email address all of the time. This is where email exchanges get interesting. When you sign up for an email exchange account you are given one email address in specific to work with and a user name. Your email address is based on your user name.

You are then required to enter keywords that will allow your email service provider to latch on to these keywords so that you can receive emails from trusted friends etc. these keywords can be their names or anything else that you come up with. When you give out your email address, it is only those that contain your keywords in the subject line or return address that are able to get through to your inbox. Your other emails are then sent to another email address that constantly changes for your perusal. If they are not picked up after a certain period of time, the email address provider simply empties the account and opens a new one.

This special email changes all of the time, however you will always have access to it with your user name and password. This is a great way for you to stay on top of the curve and never again have to worry about spam again. When it comes to spam wars this is one of my favorite tools. These services are not free but they are often the same cost of running your paid email services from your ISP. The best part is that you will not have to worry about spam anymore or whether or not if your computer is going to crash because of them. It is just good sense to invest in one of these programs if you are getting to the point where you spend more time sifting through emails than in any other part of your day.

How Spammers Get Your Email Address

E-mail spammers don't get your address because you're on the distribution list of legitimate e-mail publications. These days, it is a very rare mailing list that is completely open. That is not to say that there aren't any secure mailing lists, but it is very easy to get a hold of email addresses these days.

So where do these spammers get your address you may be wondering? The number one place that people used to use were posts on internet forums, and message boards. Newsgroups are "publicly" readable; whether you post your message on your local ISP or on a major service of some other kind, your message is typically spread worldwide by Usenet in a matter of hours, and it; as well as your email is quickly picked up by advertisers.

The current most-common place to get your address is from actual web pages. If your e-mail address is listed on a web page anywhere on the internet at all, such as from a contact section especially if that page is listed in a search engine or directory, spammers will find it. To know if this is possible all that you have to do is trying searching for your own e-mail address in Google. If you can find it there, spammers can too.

Spammers get a hold of fresh addresses by going to web sites and scanning for e-mail addresses anywhere on the site. The software that they use can, for instance, ask a search engine for any page that has any keyword in it that they choose and grab the addresses off those pages for a specific list of people that have an interest in that keyword. It takes only minutes to gather thousands of addresses out of this search.

The main point here is that spammers often search through public forums and internet web pages for the “@” symbol so that they add your email address to their files. If you don't post them directly and instead type “yourname_at_suchandsuch.com, their software can't see it as a potential email address and will move past it. If you are determined to post your email address online, then you have to be prepared for spam, and in this case a filter program may be more useful to you. The trick is for you to not open or answer any of these emails at all!

Stop Spam With Disposable Email Addresses

There are so many different ways that you can choose to avoid getting spam that could potentially ruin your computer. You can use filters, blockers and various different programs that will help to keep spam from your account which just about every email service provider offers, or you can choose to go a completely different route which is perhaps the most innovative method out there today. This method is called “disposable emails”.

What makes these disposable email addresses so useful in fighting spam is that once they receive a certain number of spams, these email addresses simply self destruct. This may sound silly since you are probably wondering how this will benefit you since you have to likely change your email address all of the time. This is where disposable emails get interesting. When you sign up for a disposable email address you are given one email address in specific to work with and a user name. Your email address is based on your user name.

You are then required to enter keywords that will allow your email service provider to latch on to these keywords so that you can receive emails from trusted friends etc. these keywords can be their names or anything else that you come up with. When you give out your email address, it is only those that contain your keywords in the subject line or return address that are able to get through to your inbox. Your other emails are then sent to another email address that constantly changes for your perusal. If they are not picked up after a certain period of time, the email address simply deletes itself.

This special email changes all of the time, however you will always have access to it with your user name and password. This is a great way for you to stay on top of the curve and never again have to worry about spam again. When it comes to spam wars this is one of my favorite tools. These services are not free but they are often the same cost of running your paid email services from your ISP. The best part is that you will not have to worry about spam anymore or whether or not if your computer is going to crash because of them. It is just good sense to invest in one of these programs if you are getting to the point where you spend more time sifting through emails than in any other part of your day.

Anti-Spam Programs

Email spam has been a problem on the Internet for a number of years now, and a number of anti spam programs on the market have come and gone by the wayside. The war on spam is indeed an ongoing process. The good news is that we are winning the war. The federal government has cracked down on spammers and made it clear that spam will not be taken lightly anymore.

At one point a man was actually prosecuted and convicted of sending over 825 million spam emails. For this crime, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison which sounds great to me. Surely news like this will help to deter spammers, but there will always be those who feel like they're above the law. The problem with spam is that it is sent anonymously from email addresses that have been stolen, and therefore are harder to track to the sender.

A friend of mine had her AOL screen name pirated and was being used to send thousands of spam emails. I'm not sure how they got the password since they didn't really explain this for me, but that is why so many people have decided that they aren't going to deal with spam any more. It isn't enough to merely delete spam; because once it's in your box then it has a chance to contaminate your system. You may open one inadvertently, and once is all it takes for the virus to kick in.

The bottom line here is that the anti spam solutions are out there. We have the technology now to never be worrying about spam again. All it will take is one person at a time being turned on to anti spam software. Some more tips is no to buy anything from these spam artists and to try to get it out of your inbox as soon as possible if you can. Many email servers offer spam blocking such as Yahoo, MSN and Hotmail. You can use their services but also do not publish your email address if you can avoid it because that is how many spammers get it in the first place.

Another method that you can use to avoid having spam destroy your computer or life is for you to be able to avoid opening any forwarded emails because these could potentially carry viruses. Even if you are receiving a forward from a friend, it could have something in it that your friend doesn't know about. To be safe, you should just avoid them all together. Anti spam programs are everywhere you just need to choose the right one for you.

Choosing the Right Anti-Spam Program

When it comes to anti spam programs and the general war against spam, there are many different programs types to choose from. When it comes to the safety of your computer, one of the best ways to ensure that you don't get one is to avoid getting and opening spam emails. Spam emails often contain viruses, worms, Trojans, and spyware that can potentially damage your computer to no ends or simply make using your computer extremely frustrating. There are however many different ways that you can combat spam and that is what this article is about.

If you are interested in stopping spam from ripping your computer to shreds, you can start by getting some general information on spam in the first place. You should also realize that there is more than one way that you can get trapped by spam. You can get much information about spam on the internet. This makes sense since it is through the internet that spam attacks you.

You can use just about any anti spam program when it comes to your home personal computer. However, if you are running a business you may need a bit more protection. Spam filters alone will not help you as you will likely be getting hundreds of emails a day. It helps to post your email as a direct link on your website rather than posting it because that is how spammer's software will find you. You can also use various anti spam software programs that will sift through them for you so that you don't have to.

You can also use various different email exchange programs or disposable email programs. What makes these disposable email addresses so useful in fighting spam is that once they receive a certain number of spams, these email addresses simply self destruct. This may sound silly since you are probably wondering how this will benefit you since you have to likely change your email address all of the time. This is where disposable emails and email exchanges get interesting. When you sign up for a disposable email address you are given one email address in specific to work with and a user name. Your email address is based on your user name. It's that simple.

You are then required to enter keywords that will allow your email service provider to latch on to these keywords so that you can receive emails from trusted friends etc. these keywords can be their names or anything else that you come up with. When you give out your email address, it is only those that contain your keywords in the subject line or return address that are able to get through to your inbox. Your other emails are then sent to another email address that constantly changes for your perusal. If they are not picked up after a certain period of time, the email address simply deletes itself.

Anti-Spam Filters

There are so many anti spam programs on the market today that it can be nearly impossible for you to choose the right one for you. Many people are opting to use spam filters. These days, there are few tools that are more important to an efficient workplace than an excellent spam filtering service. The down side here is that online junk-mail marketers are becoming more numerous and insidious by the day. Because of this, it is more important than ever to stop e-mail spam.

Did you know that the average employee who spends only a few minutes a day reading and removing spam email will waste more than 20 billable hours a year? If you actually multiply that by the number of employees who receive these emails and you have yourself a major productivity problem on your hands. It is time to fight back, and reclaim your employees' time.

Of course, with the ever-growing sophistication and available technology of today's spammers, anti-spam programs have often become so complicated that they're almost not worth the time it takes to install them. A few of the top companies, however, have managed to solve that problem.

They do this by simply sending all of your email through these companies' filters; spam can be pre-filtered so that your server never has to deal with it in the first place. That would certainly be easier.

Also, because the filters exist on these top companies' servers, and not yours, you'll never have to worry about any of the space they can take on your server resources. While you focus on the more important elements of your business, these top companies are putting all incoming email through rigorous multi-level tests, so that you will not have to. In this day and age, the peace of mind that you can get from a great spam filtering company can provide can be worth its weight in gold.

However, just to make a point, filters alone will not be able to solve all of your spam problems all by itself. You should also put some energy into using anti spam programs as well. Using your common sense will also be a major aspect in preventing spam from reaching your computer in that you should never open them, reply to them or click on anything in them either.

The best thing that you can do to save yourself from spam is to ignore and delete any emails that come from sources that you don't know anything about the sender.