AntiSpam Software and Techniques

Unsolicited bulk email also known as junk email or simply spam, accounts for more than 50% of all emails sent daily. Spam is a major issue for a lot of internet users. Over 40% of all advertising related spam messages belongs to the pharmaceuticals industry. Next is dating at almost 20% and the rest could be anything from replicas, gambling, software and finance, to fraud, scams and phishing attempts.

Since the early 90s, spam has been growing at a steady rate. United States and China are the leading sources of email spam, with US still being the undisputed champion.

Most of the unwanted messages are sent from infected computers owned by users who are unfortunately unaware of what is happening. Securing the computer should be the top priority of every user browsing the internet.

The next one is to minimize and completely cut off spam that you are receiving. You can achieve this to a degree once you are protected by a professional security application.

Security Software

Internet security suites will usually feature an anti-spam module. This means that your computer will be able to block bad websites, email messages, and prevent any malicious threats of entering your system. If you were to combine this with a webmail application, your chances of being scammed online would be extremely decreased.

Webmail - Web Based Email

Reading email online has it's advantages. You only need an internet browser in order to be able to send and receive messages. However, the true power of a quality webmail service lies in it's ability to effectively block unwanted spam.

Also, webmail can be configured to send and receive messages in the traditional manner via a desktop client using the standard protocols. If you prefer to use a specific email client, you can continue without having to download spam every time you check for new messages.

The top 3 free webmail providers at the moment are:

Gmail has by far the best spam filter a webmail application could have. Driven by it's users, the application is constantly "learning" and improving the filters. It serves more than 260 million users worldwide.

Generating The Addresses

Aside from being able to use the infected computer to spread spam to all of it's contacts and beyond, spammers can also automatically scrap the internet as well as self generate huge lists of potential email addresses by using sophisticated algorithms. A typical email database is very inaccurate, but because of it's extremely massive size even a slightest chance of delivering the message successfully can result in millions of unwanted emails finding their way to real people.

Users need to remember to never respond or even navigate an obvious spam email. "Unsubscribing" from a mailing list that you never joined is everything but unsubscribing. This is a known way of telling the spammers "Yes, I am a real person". Although you will probably never receive the same email again, your email address will be flagged as "valid" for future use and you will continue to receive spam as long as you use it. Spammers will also sell or trade their validated databases between each other.

Please see the Beware of Phishing Attempts guide for more information on how to detect fake messages which are meant to specifically steal your sensitive data instead of making you buy the bogus product or service.

These types of messages are much more dangerous since they are harder to detect and they can cause a considerably higher amount of financial damage.