Are you steaming about SPAM?

"Spam" is the name for those annoying, unsollicited e-mails you receive that are trying to sell you something or are about something. Some of us are lucky and receive only a few of them — others receive tons and spam becomes a time-wasting headache. In fact recent statistics compiled by the Radicati Group, 121 billion spam messages are transmitted every day to theapproximately 1.4 billion email accounts currently in existence worldwide.

If you're one of the lucky ones who only receive a few, probably the best approach is to simply delete them as they arrive. You seldom get repeats unless you have gotten on a list somehow.

If you're one of the others, visit JunkBusters for useful tips in combating and avoiding spam.

When all else fails, change your e-mail address. That allows you to start with a clean slate. Consider a second email address from one of the free services such as Yahoo, Hotmail or HushMail and use that address for online activity where your address may be mined by robots or shared and/or sold by commercial sites.

There are a number of free spam filters available. If you would like to try one, check out K9 linked from our Free Stuff Internet page. Another possibility is Spamfighter, a certified Microsoft partner. Note the free version adds an advertising line to your emails.