| Unsolicited email, known widely as spam, is a terrible | | | | to prevent spam from appearing in your inbox for |
| inconvenience most Internet surfers face on a daily | | | | FREE. |
| basis. Nowadays, its pretty easy to assume that | | | | The first option is to use Google's GMail, Microsoft |
| there are more spam mails sent daily than real email | | | | Hotmail or Yahoo Mail as your email client. Google, |
| messages worldwide. | | | | Yahoo and Microsoft spend tens of millions of dollars |
| Did you know that spam email could be more than | | | | each year developing spam blocking technology and |
| just annoying? It can be downright dangerous to | | | | you benefit from it for free with your account. All |
| your financial and personal identity. Did you know that | | | | three of these providers offer POP3 email |
| email spam is the top choice to steal information that | | | | functionality, which means you can download other |
| is used today by Cyber-criminals and other organized | | | | email into your webmail and use the spam filtering |
| online criminals. | | | | software to weed out spam messages, phishing |
| How do they do this? It's quite simple really. The | | | | emails and other unwanted mail. |
| spam messages they send are called phishing emails. | | | | If you prefer to use a POP3 email client on your |
| The emails often appear to be legitimate messages | | | | computer, such as Outlook, Eudora or Windows Mail, |
| from companies you conduct business with. It could | | | | you may want to consider a program like |
| be your bank, your school, a credit card company or | | | | SpamFighter, POPFile or SpamPal. These are just a |
| some other website. | | | | few examples. |
| In the message, the cyber-criminal will state that you | | | | These programs attach onto your email client and |
| need to verify your account information. The | | | | test each email that arrives in your email box. |
| message you receive will most likely include a link to | | | | Questionable emails are normally delegated to a spam |
| a website that looks like a real website. The problem | | | | folder and outright dangerous emails can be deleted |
| is that it is not. The website they send you to is | | | | automatically if you choose. |
| nothing more than a data-harvesting website where | | | | The software use blacklist data and other features |
| they attempt to get you to outright give them your | | | | to weedout spam emails and determine legitimate |
| bank account numbers, social security number, credit | | | | messages. Sometimes legitimate messages will be |
| card number, website passwords and other sensitive | | | | flagged as spam, but you can setup rules to prevent |
| data. | | | | this from happening again. |
| How can you prevent this from happening to you? | | | | Although today there is no perfect spam prevention |
| One simple step is to use spam filtering or blocking | | | | or anti-spam software on the market, using the |
| software in your email inbox. Now we are going to | | | | techniques outlined here will go a long way in cutting |
| talk about the options you have for downloading free | | | | down on the number of spam messages in your |
| spam blockers and other software that will attempt | | | | inbox each day. |