A very, very old email tip to prevent nasty code executions from spam on email clients was to simply disable the preview pane altogether. But you have to remember back then that email clients were decidedly "dumb". Today they’re much smarter. For example, you can disable/enable the preview pane at whim in Mozilla Thunderbird just by pressing F8. In addition, just about every client has the ability to force-read all mail in plain text; this thwarts almost all spam from triggering web bugs letting the spammer know you opened the mail.

Webmail on the other hand is a different story. Your browser is not an email client by design.

As most people know, spam routinely has embedded images in them and as a webmail user you have no option to force-read webmail in plain text. So on the instances where spam accidentally gets in your inbox with embedded images, spammers are crafty enough where the images will display anyway, send the web bug, and as a result you get more spam.

Fortunately for you, the subject line of spam emails usually make it very obvious what they are. For the times spam lands in your inbox, you can bypass opening it altogether and delete without opening it.

Here’s how it’s done using Hotmail, Yahoo Mail or Gmail:

Hotmail

Change the reading pane setting to Off. This is on the right side of the screen when logged in and looks like this:

When you see a spam land in the inbox, put a check in the box, then click the Delete or Junk link.

Yahoo Mail

In the "new" mode, click View then Reading Pane OR just press v on your keyboard.

When you see a spam, right-click the mail and delete or check the box for the spam and click the Delete or Spam button.

In Yahoo Mail "classic" mode there isn’t any reading/preview pane of any kind. On mails you see as spam in the inbox, check the box and delete or mark as spam.

Gmail

This mail system by default shows all mail as threaded conversations. To see a mail you must click thru. If you see a spam, check the box for that conversation, then click the Report spam button.

Do I have to say it?

Spam.

Or at least that’s what Symantec says, so you can take that for what it’s worth.

Spam is one of those things that’s constantly changing to bust the roadblocks we put up against it. However we as email users are smarter now and we also have better tools to fight the junk.

What’s the best way to filter spam out?

This depends on how you get to your email.

With web-based mail, staying in the browser is the best way to filter the junk out. This mail environment is designed in such as way where the interface is in that "Let me do that for you" mode of operation. And yes, letting the environment take care of the spam on your behalf is the best option.

Using a client on the other hand requires more manual involvement. This is how I use email and I personally like it better. For example, in my setup I have SpamAssassin running on server-side. But I also have the built-in junk filter running on client-side with Mozilla Thunderbird. This combination of local and server is very effective. SA gets rid of most of it while the local filter catches whatever SA doesn’t (and not much gets through). Thunderbird also "trusts" SA which makes it work even better.

With a local client there are many ways to use junk filtration.

Here’s a few:

Mailwasher

There are free and pro versions of this. Works with Incredimail, Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Gmail, AOL Mail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail. It’s got all the bases covered.

OnlyMyEmail

This service does not require any software as its handled directly from the web site. Not free. It’s won several awards for its performance.

Cloudmark

Some of you may remember Cloudmark from the past. They’re still around and still doing a great job. Not free, but with a free 15-day trial.

POPFile

Free. Some say this is better than most paid email spam-blocker products. I can honestly say this is the "geekiest" of the bunch as it has a very powerful interface where you can control every single thing that happens. This is, said honestly, a spam filter on steroids. But for some, that might be exactly what you’re looking for. I strongly suggest reading the Quick Start Guide if you want to try it out.