Spam represents all the unwanted rubbish that turns up in your email in-tray trying to sell you all sorts of dubious products.

"An Ounce of Prevention is worth pound of cure".

If you use an email provider like Yahoo or HotMail then your email address is likely to be guessed. For example, JohnSmith@hotmail.com will be taken by someone, as will JohnSmith1@hotmail.com, JohnSmith2@hotmail.com etc. If you pick an unusual name (eg using unusual characters) then you are less likely to have your name found.

Don't leave your email address in public places (eg discussion groups) because it will be picked up by "scanners" that search the internet looking for new email addresses.

Dealing With Spam

The first thing to do with Spam is delete it. Don't open it- it can reveal that your email address is live, meaning that you guarantee yourself more spam!

The best way to delete it is before you see it. There are several organisations out there who try to get rid of spam but there is the inevitable competition between the spammers and the anti-spammers, meaning some junk is always going to get through.

PCW.co.uk did a review in December 2003 of anti-spam solutions for Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express (I personally call these "Microsoft Viral Agent"...) and gave their Editors Choice award to Audiotrieve Inboxer, with Cloudmark Spam Net and Firetrust Mailwasher Pro sharing a "Highly Commended" award.

If you insist on using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express then you should consider getting one of these products. If you share my dislike of Microsoft then you could try an email program like Qualcomm Eudora with the Spamnix anti-Spam tool.