Getting Spammed
A few times a day I get a wonderful message from “Sarah” offering to send me a huge portion of her inheritance just because she saw my profile picture online and thought that I could be trusted. What about General Gazinda Malin who has some war treasures that he needs to sneak out of Iraq and I am his only hope?
I am assuming that most of you can identify with this issue. Luckily, my gmail is pretty good at filtering their nonsense and sends it straight to my junkmail bin, but sometimes one or two sneak through.
I have had many ingenious ideas on how to categorise my mail, and work around getting spam in the first place, but this has never worked.
A few times a day I get a wonderful message from “Sarah” offering to send me a huge portion of her inheritance just because she saw my profile picture online and thought that I could be trusted. What about General Gazinda Malin who has some war treasures that he needs to sneak out of Iraq and I am his only hope?
I am assuming that most of you can identify with this issue. Luckily, my gmail is pretty good at filtering their nonsense and sends it straight to my junkmail bin, but sometimes one or two sneak through.
I have had many ingenious ideas on how to categorise my mail, and work around getting spam in the first place, but this has never worked.
Some of the ways I have tried avoiding spam are:
- Setting up a second email address for forum sign-ups.
- Using false email addresses to sign-up for non-verification sites.
As you could well guess, having possibly tried a few methods yourself, this is not a viable way to manage your inbox; multiple email addresses are difficult to work with and remembering the different passwords can become an issue.
Some of the ways I have tried avoiding spam are:
- Setting up a second email address for forum sign-ups.
- Using false email addresses to sign-up for non-verification sites.
As you could well guess, having possibly tried a few methods yourself, this is not a viable way to manage your inbox; multiple email addresses are difficult to work with and remembering the different passwords can become an issue.
What Tools are Available to Combat Spam
On one of my many google fact finding expeditions, I stumbled across a really nice set of tools that can be used with Gmail.
What these tools revolve around are the use of a single Gmail address to handle all of your email and anti-spam needs.
First of all, let me give you some background as to how Gmail sees your email addresses.
- Gmail does not distinguish between myemail@gmail.com andmy.email@gmail.com and m.y.e.m.a.i.l@gmail.com.
- Gmail does not read anything in your email address after a + sign. Therefore, if you were to type myemail+facebook@gmail.com, the email would still be directed to myemail@gmail.com.
(P.S. If you have any other cool Gmail features that you would like me to add to this list, specifically as spam prevention tools, please let me know in the comments.)
On one of my many google fact finding expeditions, I stumbled across a really nice set of tools that can be used with Gmail.
What these tools revolve around are the use of a single Gmail address to handle all of your email and anti-spam needs.
First of all, let me give you some background as to how Gmail sees your email addresses.
- Gmail does not distinguish between myemail@gmail.com andmy.email@gmail.com and m.y.e.m.a.i.l@gmail.com.
- Gmail does not read anything in your email address after a + sign. Therefore, if you were to type myemail+facebook@gmail.com, the email would still be directed to myemail@gmail.com.
(P.S. If you have any other cool Gmail features that you would like me to add to this list, specifically as spam prevention tools, please let me know in the comments.)
How to Use These Tools to Combat Spam
Tool 1 – The Full-Stops
This system is best suited to sorting your mail into different inboxes to allow you to gauge where you need to concentrate most of your energy.
An example of such a system would be:
1. m.yemail@gmail.com Forums
2. my.email@gmail.com Friends
3. mye.mail@gmail.com Social Networks
4. myem.ail@gmail.com Banking
5. myema.il@gmail.com Website Sign-Ups
You can set a filter in Gmail to move mail from each different address to a different inbox. This prevents you having to set up complex rules and filters which look at the message subject to determine to which inbox a file needs to go.
Tool 2 – The Plus Sign
To use this tool, you don’t really need to have a system at all; all you have to do is remember.
When you sign-up for any webpage, add a +websitename to the address that you sign-up with. In this way, you can see exactly how you data is being shared.
If you happen to get spam from myemail+websitename@gmail.com, then you know that your data has been shared by that site. You can then target that website directly and name and shame them. Big name websites pride themselves on data privacy, and being exposed as sharing data is one of the big no-nos of the internet.
One downside of this Tool is that when you sign up to a website, or forum with it, you will need to use that exact email as your username each time, making a much longer string to type in; your choice, spam or not.
As with the previous Tool, you can also assign categories to your addresses after the plus sign, and be more generic, instead of adding a website name, but that pretty much defies the purpose of trying to trace where you spam originates.
Tool 1 – The Full-Stops
This system is best suited to sorting your mail into different inboxes to allow you to gauge where you need to concentrate most of your energy.
An example of such a system would be:
1. m.yemail@gmail.com Forums
2. my.email@gmail.com Friends
3. mye.mail@gmail.com Social Networks
4. myem.ail@gmail.com Banking
5. myema.il@gmail.com Website Sign-Ups
You can set a filter in Gmail to move mail from each different address to a different inbox. This prevents you having to set up complex rules and filters which look at the message subject to determine to which inbox a file needs to go.
Tool 2 – The Plus Sign
To use this tool, you don’t really need to have a system at all; all you have to do is remember.
When you sign-up for any webpage, add a +websitename to the address that you sign-up with. In this way, you can see exactly how you data is being shared.
If you happen to get spam from myemail+websitename@gmail.com, then you know that your data has been shared by that site. You can then target that website directly and name and shame them. Big name websites pride themselves on data privacy, and being exposed as sharing data is one of the big no-nos of the internet.
One downside of this Tool is that when you sign up to a website, or forum with it, you will need to use that exact email as your username each time, making a much longer string to type in; your choice, spam or not.
As with the previous Tool, you can also assign categories to your addresses after the plus sign, and be more generic, instead of adding a website name, but that pretty much defies the purpose of trying to trace where you spam originates.
Conclusion
My personal preference is to use Tool 2 – The Plus Sign just because you are going to be able to see immediately what is going on when you receive spam. Yes, I know that I will have to type in a much longer email address to login to these sites, but then again, it’s not as if I need to remember the extra part.
My personal preference is to use Tool 2 – The Plus Sign just because you are going to be able to see immediately what is going on when you receive spam. Yes, I know that I will have to type in a much longer email address to login to these sites, but then again, it’s not as if I need to remember the extra part.
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