Considering what we have been emailing about today.....am I really meant to believe this email I found when I got home is a coincidence?
I haven't put anything confidential in emails for a long time....I now use my landline a lot more, because I really don't trust the security of email or texts.
I even have a credit card especially for buying on line with a miniscule limit so if anyone tries to buy the crowns jewels on my card they will. (hopefully) get nicked!
Needless to say I deleted this Rubbish after I screen grabbed it!
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AgedCrone
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This cannot be a coincidence, now can it? I am seriously considering what, or even if, I email. Selling snake oil to us is one thing and we can all see through that but we can reveal far more sensitive details, believing ourselves to be safe, maybe leaving us open to more sinister contacts. Worrying.
On a lighter note why do I keep getting email advertising plus size clothing? I'm 53k and 5'5". Slim bordering on human twiglet
I'm similar size/weight & I keep getting slimming advice..mostly from the US with pictures of really unattractive fatties....but what to do except delete,delete,delete?
As a 59 year old female, it’s the emails for viagra, penis enlargement and offers to meet sexy women that bug me the most! 😡
Interestingly though, I have a separate email account specifically for online shopping, and I never get spam on that, it all just seems to come through my ‘regular’ account (and they’re both the same provider, gmail).
I don't know what I clicked on yesterday when I went my on technical dabble...but I have only had two doubtful emails this morning & Amazon & Google ask if I want to log in or continue Incognito?
Whether that means I'm not being " Cookied" I don't know!
Yes very strange. Me, the wife & kids all think something strange is going on. If we speak about something, the next thing is an advert for that very same thing comes up on Google, Facebook, twitter etc. We also have an Alex who talks to herself. We are not alone...
I think there are ways to block emails. Google may help with that one. Good luck & let me know how you get on. I don't know if a VPN would help you with Internet browsing.
It’s the evil cookies what do it😉. Every time you go on a site you have to agree to the evil cookies. So you go on a health site, like this, and they will pick it up and any ‘interested’ party, ie those who want to sell you stuff linked with health will bombard you with ads. So whatever you google or search for on the internet is logged I’m afraid. I have a high security level on my email. So it’s set that unless I know the sender, it just goes straight to my junk mail. I check this daily and if it is someone I know I move it to my in box. The rest gets automatically deleted after 5 days.
Mind you. I do read some for pure entertainment value before I delete them. Especially the horribly misspelled ones who want to give me ( a total stranger) their late husbands $500000000000.
Whatever you do, don’t respond in any way to emails. Don’t ‘unsubscribe’ as that will make it worse as then they know you are a live email. Just ignore and delete. Or reset your email filter
I'll give it a few days & if they don't lessen,I'll get my tame techie in to put in whatever it takes to get rid!
I've looked at a few solutions but. I don't want to mess up my settings .....which I am quite capable of doing.....& make the situation a whole lot worse!
GDPR? Don’t make me laugh.🙄. Of course this is a European legislation. Which has cost legitimate businesses (like mine) thousands in time and IT costs. And where do most of these scam emails and phone calls come from? And are they bothered about GDPR? 🙄🙄.
And me. GDPR is a right pain and will do nothing to stop the spam coming from other parts of the world. Lot are avoiding GDPR by rerouting. What a waste of time it was and I hated all the scaremongering tactics.
I ve read couple of interesting books on social media lately: the people vs tech Jamie Bartlett & jaron Lanier ten arguments against social media but hasn’t stopped me coming on here ☺️ It’s all weighing up risks/benefits I guess: I don’t do Facebook and don’t like the idea of Alexa listening in to all that goes on in house. Quote from one of them: if you’re not paying for something then you are the product (or your data is)! X
Each time you go on a website it will ask about cookies, unfortunately not the good ones 😉 🍪, these track the things you look at online and then use the information to give you targeted advertising. You can change the cookie preferences for each website. When you get a junk email you can report it as a phishing scam and your email account should block it or automatically put it in your junk folder.
Not sure about Alexa (bought for us as an unexpected gift) as we only had ours plugged in for a few months and only asked her to tell us jokes, the weather or ask her stupid questions and never found anything untoward.
From what I have read of Alexa & similar...they are fine if you love your little techie toys....in my boring little bubble I have nothing to hide.....but the though of having a piece of plastic stuffed with technology I don't understand sitting in my house is just not going to happen!
I'm having enough problems with nutters telling me how to lose weight,win $m, date Russian women & all sorts of unspeakable escapades I have never heard of.
I like Alexa. It plays music I like. Sets my alarm. Tells me weather forecast. I can tell it to do my shopping list. So I use ours a lot. And it doesn’t argue with me😂😂
Thank you...I don't have Alexa,am not on any social media & delete 100% of emails I'm not sure of.
I close down anything asking to accept cookies........I have deleted every travel app I used to use as they seem major culprits.
It just seems odd that a subject discussed on HU now seems to result in emails advertising cures for that subject......when I have opened one thinking it was something else they all come from the same email address!
One or two I could understand but I have deleted about 10 already this morning & it's only 0732!
I'm wondering if I delete my HU account & start over it will still happen? I guess that wouldn't work.....as they come in to my personal email, and I had to change that a couple of years ago & am still feeling the repercussions!
Can HU not do anything as this is really bad. Surely they can put filters in as I do wonder sometimes if there are a few spam accounts are set up as well to look like real ones. I wonder if some new ones are set up to promote stuff,
ProtonMail is incorporated in Switzerland and all our servers are located in Switzerland. This means all user data is protected by strict Swiss privacy laws.
Type it into a search engine and it’ll give you the information and prompts you need to open an account. I also use “my startup page” for internet searches. I get no adverts or spam.
Hope this helps.
• in reply to
Apologies, the secure search engine is called “startpage”
Every now and again (not as often as I should) I delete all the cookies stored, it's a bit of a pain because then if forgets the sites where I've stored my password but I use that as a reminder to change the passwords. It does worry me that if I'm google searching for (say) a new handbag then FB seems to blast me with handbag ads.
I've got security and encryption, not to mention brilliant anti-virus and malware. I never connect to unsecured networks (coffee shops, shops/malls, airports). A different password for each account that gets changed every three months (or whenever I forget which is sometime weekly!). One of the best ways to set a password and stops hackers accessing your account/details is to choose a favourite book, that you can keep to hand and use phrases from - for example (and I've just grabbed the nearest book to me, grandson was visiting) "Hey, wake up, Croc! You've overslept - it's ten o'clock!" would turn into password "HwuCy0i10oc!". Also never look at websites that don't have an "s" at the end of the "http" as they are not secure.
My phone on the other hand, I don't trust the security, so don't store passwords for anything which can be a pain but I do use unsecured networks for general browsing if I need to.
Hi,
I don’t know which operating system you’re using. I was a Mac OSX user, now I only use iOS, as now use an iPad for everything.
I’m going to assume that what I suggest below also exist for Windows.
Firstly, Safari (the web browser for Mac OSX and iOS) has the capability to install what are called extensions. There’s an extension called Ad-Blocker which is free. I can heartily recommend this useful utility, because it will also block Facebook Ads as well - I can’t remember the last time I had an Ad on FB So, Google Ad-blocker - I think they do a version for Windows, don’t know about Android mobile systems.
Minty’s suggestion of Mail Washer is worth a look, as long as you’re running those systems. No good to Mac users or iOS.
Check that you’ve set your bowser to “private browsing” or whatever the equivalent is in Windows land.
See if your email software allows you to set rules for acceptable email. You may be able to implement a rule that says “Block everything from “zazzle.com””.
Lastly, I hear your pain, I’m having major issues with my mobile number - the amount of spam calls I’m getting is ridiculous - and all because I used it once on a “Compare” site, here in Australia - never, absolutely never again! Cheers Deb
I think it's impossible to provide a 100% guarantee of email security right now, no matter how hard you try. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. My choice, as well as many users, is the Beeble beeble.com/en/about-project , and it's a great free solution for both personal use and for business owners who want to protect their business data and corporate e-mails.
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