Email — we love to get personal email. We need to get our business email. But, do we need to get all the junk emails, too?

Back in the early 1990’s, I remember checking my email one morning and finding a really neat one — some creative computer science student from Hawaii had sent me his résumé. It took me a little while to figure out what had happened.

This was my first-ever piece of spam. This kid had sent his résumé to everyone who had posted a message to any of the Usenet comp.sys.ibmpc newsgroups. Even after I knew what he did, I thought it was cool. Not too long after that, though, was the start of the most prolific Usenet spam — the “green card lottery” spam.

Fast forward to 2005: I now receive about 250-300 emails per day, and it seems like 50% of them must be spam. Our ISPs can help, but, as users, we also have ways to control spam.

Read more in my article How Can I Prevent spam?

Ads by Terry

Slow PC? Clean It.
Tune Up Your PC with RegCure - Free Scan!
terryscomputertips.com/regc5

Free NetZero Dialup Account
Up to 10 Hours Per Month - Free! Great Backup for Cable Internet
terryscomputertips.com/NetZeroFree

One of my Terry’s Computer Tips subscribers wrote me recently to ask:

Now, how can I ignore those spam emails? How can I keep them out of my Inbox? You need a spam filter!

We’ve all tried the old way - using a “block the sender” function. Basically, this is a specific filter (called a “rule” by some programs) that says “if an email comes from him, put it in the spam folder.”

Whether you use Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora (like I do), Mozilla Thunderbird, or some other email program, they almost all provide a way to block or trash emails from specific individuals or domains. But, that doesn’t work any more…

Read the rest of the article Keep spam out of your Inbox