SUMMARY: Thinking of using a free e-mail provider to handle your personal or business e-mail? Read this first.

Nowadays, more Internet users are turning away from software-based e-mail programs run>First, the benefits:

* Many>@aol.com, @comcast.net, @verizon.net, etc. addresses.

Now here are some cons to using these services:

* Most free web-based e-mail providers show advertisements next to or around your e-mail. While some ads may be text, other providers may use graphical or Flash ads that blink, animate, or otherwise prove obtrusive and annoying.

* Just as you must trust your Internet Service Provider, you must trust the company that runs your free web-based e-mail service to uphold their privacy statement and not read your e-mail. Note that even if your provider offers a privacy agreement, they still might read your e-mail if:

- You are suspected of violating local laws (or the laws of the host country of the free e-mail provider)

- A rogue employee reads your e-mail

* Speaking of local laws, what if the e-mail provider claims you violated their Terms of Service (TOS) agreement, either by breaking the law or by spamming? What recourse do you have, if any, and will the provider automatically cancel and delete your account, eliminating all of your e-mail? Even if you never plan>can be hacked, causing someone to spam from your account.

* What if the e-mail provider goes under or decides to shut down their service? This may happen unexpectedly, and you might not be provided with any warning – say bye-bye to your e-mail! Plus, you would need to write all of your contacts and notify them that they must use a new e-mail address.

* Even though a web-based e-mail provider may update their software if an exploit is found, this doesn’t mean it will happen immediately – or at all. If someone finds an exploit and sends you a rogue message before the provider spots and fixes the problem, you might be subject to a hacked account, installed malware, or other problems. Keeping your operating system, browser, firewall, antivirus, and anti-malware applications up-to-date can help prevent these things from occurring.

So if you weigh the pros against the potential cons and still wish to use a free web-based e-mail provider, what should you do to help mitigate any risks?

* When signing up for an account, don’t just keep clicking “Next” or “I Agree” without carefully reading a provider’s Terms of Service. Local laws may differ from the laws of the host country, so take some time to ensure your seemingly-harmless activities won’t be treated as rule-breaking acts.

If you already have an account, you should still be able to read the Terms of Service. If you can’t find them, look for a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page or browse the>SECURE password – not just a simple word like secret or computer, and don’t use your birthday either. If supported by the provider, use a password with a combination of upper- and lowercase letters, numbers, and even punctuation.

Free web-based e-mail providers offer many benefits over locally-maintained software packages. Besides the fact they are free, these providers offer flexibility in that you can access e-mail anywhere with just a user ID and password. You should know, though, that problems may arise from using these services. However, if you use a secure password, read the Terms of Service, backup important e-mail, and use anti-virus and anti-malware applications that may help if an exploit is found in the provider’s software, you should be able to benefit from these free applications for years to come without too many worries.

SUMMARY: Find out whether that e-mail you just received is actually an urban legend.

Many of us have received e-mail from friends, family members, or coworkers that seemed too shocking, funny, or weird to be true. Will private cell phone numbers soon be provided to telemarketers, causing you to pay for everything from aggressive insurance sales calls to credit card companies asking you to perform balance transfers? Is Apple, Google, or Microsoft giving away huge sums of cash to people who can forward the most e-mails? And is every e-mail discussing a political candidate’s background, beliefs, or former colleagues true?

Unfortunately, many frequently distributed e-mails can be categorized as “urban legends”. Urban legends are myths, non-factual information presented in such a way, usually with a small bit of factual information, making the entire story seem plausible. They can take>

SUMMARY: Be VERY careful about electronic mail attachments – even if the sender seems to be a friend or family member! You need to read this tip.

Did someone you know just send you an electronic mail attachment that you weren’t expecting? Perhaps it’s a picture to go along with a joke, a song they want you to hear, or a program that displays fireworks>MUST be safe. Before opening a surprise attachment, why not first ask your friend, coworker, or family member in a friendly e-mail if they really meant to send you the file?

Why am I saying this? It’s not to upset dear ma. However, thanks to viruses that spread through e-mail, not to mention other types of malware people might unknowingly install by visiting rogue or hacked websites, many peoples’ computers are becoming unwitting accomplices to the spread of rogue file attachments. There are viruses that can infect machines causing them to e-mail innocent looking attachments that are actually viruses or spyware to everyone in their address book. Worse yet, some of this malware actually can make the e-mail look as if it came from someone else entirely!

That’s right. For sake of argument, assume you have a friend, Bob, who uses e-mail software that contains an address book. Let’s say that your name is in Bob’s address book, as well as the name of a mutual friend, Bill. Unfortunately, there is malware that can cause e-mail to be sent to you, unknowingly by Bob, that is made to look like it originally came from Bill! As you can see, even if your friend, family member, or coworker is not directly infected by a virus, you may receive rogue attachments that seem to be originated by them.

“Ok, ok,” you may be thinking. “I understand to be wary of executable attachments. But what about photos, songs, and documents. These are safe to open – right?”

Wrong. Virtually any type of rogue attachment can cause problems.

First, realize that depending>

SUMMARY: Help prevent your electronic mail from getting automatically tossed into spam folders.

While e-mail is an extremely important tool that helps friends, family members, and coworkers communicate, the rampant spread of unsolicited commercial e-mail has made this communication medium less useful. Depending>

SUMMARY: When sending e-mail, there may be some words you should avoid that can label your e-mail as spam.

In today’s world where 80%, 90%, or higher of all electronic mail is spam, many people, companies, and organizations employ the use of e-mail filters. These can help reduce the deluge of spam to a mere trickle.

While spam filters use a variety of techniques to determine which e-mail is unsolicited, containing malware links, etc.,>legitimate business e-mail. Thus, here are a few words you may wish to avoid in your e-mail communications. Note that this is not by any means an exhaustive list since each spam filter uses its own rules and keywords:

* aging
* and more
* dear friend
* free
* guarantee
* important
* lottery
* medicine
* mortgage
* pharmacy
* pill
* property
* rates
* urgent

SUMMARY: A few things to consider before passing jokes around via e-mail.

E-mail is a great way to keep in touch with friends, family members, and coworkers. Many people love to do so by forwarding jokes to dozens, if not hundreds, of their address book contacts.

Before you become the humor distributor, please, PLEASE read the below etiquette suggestions, lest your e-mails may just find their ways to peoples’ virtual trash cans. Even worse, some people may stop reading your e-mails altogether if you don’t follow these guidelines:

1. Always give your e-mails subject lines or they may never be read, and some people may begin ignoring all your e-mails entirely.

Be as descriptive as possible, though don’t go overboard with multi-sentence subjects. You may want to consider starting subject lines with the word JOKE: or similar to let busy individuals know the e-mails aren’t urgent, but some people may have filters that automatically trash such messages.

2. DO NOT WRITE YOUR JOKES IN ALL CAPS! ‘Nuff said. Many people find this hard to read or consider such e-mails as “shouting”. Again, send too many of these e-mails and you’ll start getting ignored.

3. When sending e-mails to a group of people, use your e-mail website or software’s BCC (blind carbon copy) feature instead of using the CC (carbon copy) feature. This hides the recipient addresses from each other.

If I see an e-mail that was sent to 100 different people I’m much less likely to read it. Plus, blind carbon copy increases privacy as some people>
7. If a joke or fact sounds too-good-to-be-true, it just might be. Check first to see if your e-mail is an urban legend by visiting the Snopes website at http://snopes.com.

Electronic mail does not have to be all work and no play (though it probably should be at the office), and occasional jokes provide a welcome diversion from the day-to-day humdrum. However, passing around jokes without following these etiquette rules might annoy people and get you ignored. Use a subject, AVOID ALL CAPS, and use blind carbon copy when sending to a group. Think twice before sending tasteless humor from the office or distributing file attachments. Remove extraneous forwarding brackets, and don’t be the person everyone talks about that always sends out urban legends thinking they are true. A little etiquette can go a long way, and minding>

SUMMARY: Respond to mailing lists in plain-text to avoid angering members.

Have you considered joining a discussion-based e-mail list? There are many lists available for meeting people, sharing ideas, or general chitchat about particular subjects. While many lists are open to everyone,>Sending Plain Text e-mail in Outlook 2003

SUMMARY: Caution – be wary when receiving e-mails inviting you to join social networks, especially if you do not recognize the network name or sender.

Nowadays, many of us receive e-mail invitations to join social networking websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or MySpace. These services make it easy for members to send out invitation emails complete with response links, and it is in their best interests to do so – as more friends sign up, these sites register higher visits and page views, potentially leading to increased advertising income.

While>google.com“, this will take you to a page>NO-NO!)

* Name and password to another e-mail account so the site can notify all your contacts to join the social network (or nefarious sites can use your account to send e-mail spam to all your contacts UNDER YOUR NAME!)

* Mother’s Maiden Name (while legitimate networks may ask this for a “Security Question”, I would not provide it. This is>

SUMMARY: Filter your mailing list e-mails to a separate folder.

Here is a suggestion. Set up a folder in your mail program to store mailing list introductory messages – you know, the messages you receive after joining mailing lists that tell you how to unsubscribe, contact the list administrator, etc. You may not need to unsubscribe today, but eventually you may need to leave the list, if>

SUMMARY: Help determine an e-mail’s country of origin.

Have you ever received an e-mail where the sender’s address didn’t end in .com, .edu, or .org, but instead .ie, .pl, or .vi? These abbreviations are called Top Level Domain codes, and they can signify the country of a user sending an e-mail message.

Sample Country TLD codes:

.cn – China
.de – Germany
.fr – France
.ie – Ireland
.jp – Japan
.us – United States
.uk – United Kingdom

For a complete list of country TLD codes, visit this page from IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority):

TLD Codes: http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm

Remember though – e-mail addresses can be forged. If you receive spam from an e-mail address ending with>