HOW TO REDUCE VIRUSES IN YOUR COMPUTER AND THOSE OF YOUR FRIENDS

Do you really know how to forward e-mails? 50% of us do; 50% do NOT .  Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail?  Do you hate it? Every time you forward an e-mail there is information left over from the people who got the message before you, namely their e-mail addresses. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds, and builds and all it takes is for some poor sap to get a virus and his (her) computer can send that virus to every e-mail address that has come across his computer.    How do you stop it?  Well, there are some easy steps:

1.     Forward only the very first copy in the chain...NOT the one that brought it to your house.

2.     When you forward it,  DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message .  That's right, DELETE them.  Highlight them and delete them, backspace them, cut them, whatever it is you know how to do.  It only takes a second. You MUST click the "Forward" button first, then you will have full editing capabilities against the body and headers of the message. 

3.     Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use the To: or Cc: columns for adding e-mail address.  Always use the BCC: (blind carbon copy) column for listing the e-mail addresses.  This is the way that people you send to only see their own e-mail address.  If you don't see your BCC: option click on where it says To: and your address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose BCC: and that's it, it's that easy. When you send to BCC: in this manner, your message will automatically say "Undisclosed Recipients" in the "TO:" field of the people who receive it. You can also make the BCC appear all the time by left clicking on View in any message you are composing and then clicking on All Headers.  From that point on you'll see Bcc: option on every new message, forwarded or replied to message.