Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Tips for Reducing Spam with the MailCOPA Email Client

Getting too much spam?  Here's some tips to reduce your chances.

Ensure that in Configuration->Set Preferences->HTML you check View HTML messages in Offline Mode.  What this means is that if you receive a message that has embedded pictures, and those pictures aren't actually included within the email message but instead reside on a website somewhere then the MailCOPA email client will not go out to the internet to retrieve them.  How will this reduce spam?  Well spammers add codes into the image links.  These codes get passed into the websites log files.  Each email has a different code.  So if the code appears in the logs, in a message that was sent to your address, then your address is a confirmed address.  Once your address is confirmed it can be sold onto other email lists, and you're going to get more spam.

If you want to see images from people you know and trust then check the Show HTML messages in Online Mode if the sender is in address book setting on the same page.  Then if someone you have in your address book sends you a mail in this manner you will still see the images.


Second tip.  Don't click the Don't Send Me More Messages link at the bottom of spam email.  Again, clicking this link will just confirm to the spammers that your address is good and that you opened and read the message.  If the mail is from some company like Amazon then the link is genuine, but if it's from a company you've never heard of it's just a confirmation link that you exist.


For more information see the MailCOPA email client web pages.