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I also get dozens of spam messages a day and delete them without reading them - not just because I'm not interested in debt relief or penis enlargement, but because I fear viruses. My "block sender" list is at full capacity. I dread going out of town for any length of time, because I know when I get back not only my "junk mail" box but my regular inbox will be full to overflowing with this crap. Aughhh. Time to change addresses, I guess.

Try going to www.mail2web.com. Most ISP email can be received there and you can delete the spam from that site without it ever going into your Inbox. I use it ALL the time nowadays. Plus I can access my e-mail from anywhere using that site.

What's not as well known is the fact that merely clicking on an email message just to delete it can let the spammer scum know that your address is valid.

Some of these dirtbags use what are known as "web bugs". It's an invisible graphic embedded in the email message which points to a CGI directory on their server. The URL of the graphic can have your email address in it or some code that represents your email address. When you open the email, the graphic tries to load, and your email program connects to their server, and quietly notifies them that you've read it.

If you can disable HTML in your email program, that's a good option. I use Netscape for my mail, and you can't disable HTML. Instead, I've gotten into the habit of temporarily disconnecting from the internet (by clicking the little "plug" icon in the lower left-hand corner of Netscape) while I go through new messages in my inbox. Once I've deleted any spam, I reconnect.

I don't know if it's because of this or something else, but my spam has slowly declined from an average of 25 per day to 2 or 3.

Here's some more info on web bugs: Web Bug FAQ Check out the section about web bugs in email messages.

Not to be repetitive, but you should try Mail Washer. It's a free download and you can find it with a google search. It lets you see your list of mail before it's downloaded to your computer. It remembers who you designate as blacklisted. The blacklisted messages still are shown to you, but you can get rid of them very easily.

For instance, let's say you get 100 messages. Two of them are from people that you designated as friends, 97 are from people you've previously blacklisted, and one is from someone who has not sent you a message before. The 97 already blacklisted are already marked for deletion. You then decide how to designate the one new sender -- either friend or blacklist.

Then you click on "process mail." The system then deletes all of the blacklisted mail, leaving only the friendly messages that you want.

At this point you haven't downloaded any messages at all onto your computer yet. Now you can have your e-mail software download the two messages that you want.