Pop Up Blockers and Spam Protection

As email became an increasingly widespread mode of communication, the spammers shifted their focus the massive audience that it made available to them. Mass emailing software soon became another essential tool of their trade, as they begun to use this application to send junk email to thousands upon thousands of unwilling recipients.

The earliest, most widely known incident of commercial spamming dates back to 1994. It involved two lawyers who spammed USENET to advertise their services as immigration lawyers. They later expanded their marketing efforts to include email spam. The incident is commonly referred to as the "Green Card Spam."

Don't fall for the phishers bait

Never click on a link on an email that you did not subscribe to. To do so would be to risk downloading malicious Trojan horse spyware, which will install keyloggers in your computer system. This would provide hackers direct access to all the personal data stored on your computer, which they will use for their own nefarious financial gain.

An email link can  be "masked" in such a way that it displays a very official looking text-link to a legitimate company's website, but clicking on it will take you to the phisher's web site.

Always keep in mind that here are malicious people out there who do nothing more than think up creative, innovative ways to get at your personal information.

The spam blockers

The spam blocker will log into your mail server email account every 10 minutes, inspecting it for spam email. It immediately destroys any viruses, and gets rid of any obvious spam such as email that contains adult or pornographic material. Undesirable email is flagged and then redirected to a folder specifically for spam. You will have an opportunity to sort through this spam folder to verify that no legitimate email is mistakenly diverted there. Any email that it is on your white-list or which it determines as legit will be left on the server to be downloaded as normal.

By blocking spam rather than just filtering it, the spam blocker helps minimize the amount of time you have to personally sort through your spam email.

Many email services offer spam blocker software. If, however, you choose to buy your own, make sure you get one that is compatible with your service. Also take into account the level of blockage it offers as well as flexibility it offers in letting you customize the settings to your own preferences.