While spam is a fact of life these days and if you’re already getting it, it’s hard to get rid of, there are a few things you can do to prevent or reduce its appearance.
one. Never give your email address to someone you don’t know or trust. Treat it like your phone number or home address.
two. Activate the spam filters that come with your mail system. Outlook, Hotmail, and AOL have built-in filters, make sure they’re turned on.
3. When creating your email address, use letters, numbers, and underscores if possible. This makes it more difficult for spammers to find your email address using automated email generators.
Four. Create a second dummy or spam address to use online. Use this if you need to sign in to a site. You can always change it later.
5. Never respond to emails unless they are from someone you know or something you have personally subscribed to; just confirm that your address is valid and you will continue to receive more spam as spammers exchange valid emails.
6. Never spam forwarding or email chaining: You risk forwarding your own and others’ email addresses for the world and spammers to see. Use sites like BreakTheChain and Snopes to look for fake and chain emails.
7. Never unsubscribe from ‘spam’ email – sometimes all this does is simply validate your address and it is transmitted. Unsolicited emails from valid companies should give you the option to unsubscribe.
8. Wisdom. You won’t really win a lottery you never entered. You’re not going to get paid thousands for helping a Nigerian businessman, an African politician… get his money out of the country. Banks will generally address you by name, not ‘Dear Customer’.
9. Never Click links in spam emails: Phishing emails will capture your user ID/password or account details on a “fake” website. Check the actual URL in the email; it is usually obvious that it is false. (It usually shows up at the bottom of the screen, in a popup window when you hover over it with your mouse.)
10 Use antivirus software. It doesn’t take much for a virus to get away, especially in a tempting attachment. It is better to protect yourself than to risk losing data. McAfee, Norton, and AVG all make online versions that update automatically.
And on that subject, take regular backups. Where would you be if you lost your PC for a period of time? How valuable is your work?
