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Archive for the ‘Spyware & Adware’ Category



Access Denied

January 13th, 2008 by Blogging Rock Star

Web browser not working properly anymore? Pop-up windows and ads popping up from nowhere? Your computer could be infected.

Safe web surfing on the Internet continues to get harder every day. Although you can’t eliminate all of the risks, there are ways you can reduce potential dangers.

Anything you download from the Internet could be a threat but a few software programs are known for including spyware and adware.

With these safe web surfing tips and common sense you can avoid a lot of common problems, ie. the problems mentioned above.

Any file-sharing program is a big problem because the files come from several computers.

The first safe web surfing tip is stay away from file-sharing programs all together because this is a major source of computer problems today.

Another good safe web surfing tip is to be cautious about products that claim to be free. Read the rest of this entry »

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Spam In My Inbox

October 18th, 2007 by Blogging Rock Star

Even though it is still quite awhile until the prime-time December-shopping season, many of us have already noticed an increase in the spam in our email boxes.

Glasbergen Comic

How did they know my email address?

Spammers can:

  1. “Harvest” email addresses from web pages
  2. Subscribe to other mailing lists to gain access to other subscribers’ addresses
  3. Use programs to send spam to computer-generated email addresses. They do not need to know whether the generated address exists or not, that’s what ‘undeliverable’ bounce-backs are for
  4. Purchase your email address from companies that specialize in #3 above.

What can I do to fight spam?

The simplest way is to filter your emails. If you get spam messages from email addresses of a particular domain name or IP address, you block that domain name/IP address. If you get spam about “Viagra”, you block all messages with “Viagra” in the message.

This is content filtering, which can be achieved using the mail processing rules and content filtering rules in your email program like Microsoft Outlook.

Another way to filter email is by using an anti-spam program. I like using Adaware.

If you prefer using a POP email client to access your emails, you may want to check out Mozilla Thunderbird.

Thunderbird is a lot like Outlook Express, but a lot more secure and it’s Open Source.

Anything else I can do?

  1. I personally keep a few email addresses, and I designate a couple of them for newsletters and other online subscriptions. This way, I am not releasing my critical email addresses to people/companies I don’t trust.
  2. Use an email form instead of exposing your email address on your web pages.
  3. Never respond to spam. Remember, all these spammers need is a handful of responders for their spamming activities to be worthwhile.

You can further install an anti-spam program onto your computer to help you scan emails in your POP mail client. McAfee Spam Killer is one of such programs.

tag Posted in Email + Open Source + Spam + Spyware & Adware | comment No Comments »