Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Free Spam Blockers You Can Download

By thulas


The internet is rife with spam to the extent that using email is losing its efficacy and people are losing confidence in it but there is also a growing concern over the growing incidences of computer virus through unsolicited mail. With the signing of the Can Spam bill by President Bush in December 2003, the first standard was set against bulk unsolicited email which are of commercial in nature. Approved and voted by the Senate by 97 to 0 this bill basically forbids senders of bulk unsolicited commercial emails by using dictionaries to generate the mailer and providing incorrect return addresses to hide their identities. Over and above this, these emails can not start with a subject line which deceives the recipient and must have some opt out option. The law bars senders from gathering addresses from sites and any violation is considered as a punitive criminal offence with imprisonment of up to one year.

We ought to remember that large numbers of spam are now arriving from other countries. These emails are harder to fight, because they come from outside our country's laws and regulations. Because the internet has thrown open all geographical barriers, these laws can not erase the problem. Are there any rules which can save you from the situation? Use these 5 rules for protection against spam?

Number 1: Whatever you do, make sure that your email address is never there on the net. 'Spam spiders' are specialized products which hunt for email address on the net for using as a mailing list later. If the word 'spam spider' triggers your interest do a search for this word on the net, the results might just shock you. 'Spambots' and 'spam spiders' and similar rogues on the net is confronted ably by a site called WebPoison.org which is an open source project which just goes on sending them rubbish web pages which carry nonsense email addresses.

Number 2: Get spam blocking software. It is likely that you might want the professional series of this software but whatever you do, get the software as it could save you hours. It must be noted that the software is not capable of preventing all that is going wrong and some manual set up might be needed to block some specific types of emails.

Number 3: Start using various email addresses. There are several free email address you could choose from through which you could receive newsletters and have another address as a back up. Imagine giving your private mobile number to your friends and your business number to all others.

Number 4: Spam mail usually has attachments which can have viruses. But large companies use filters which sieve through spam and never allow them to reach you. Some basic rules: Never attempt to open any mail attachment where you do not know the sender.

Number 5: Today email service providers are offering 'bulk mail' boxes. In case your existing service provider does not support this concept, try to switch to another vendor. The job is to let all the mails received from unknown people in a bulk email pile and then let it move into your circle. Spam Blocking software has this concept as well, but having extra layers seems critical these days, so it is worth looking into.

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