I HATE ADVERTS AND SPAM

Sorry to shout, but I'd really like to see the people creating adverts and spam subjected to hours - days - weeks - months - years of flashing images and sorting through junk looking for gems.

The great thing about the real World is you do have a great deal of choice about if and when and where you might be presented with a distraction by someone selling something.  The Internet is a victim of it's own success. Many of the ways to make money involve catching users with a glimpse or sound that might get them to (click) spend money they otherwise would not have done.

So my message here is how to increase your choice without restricting your freedom.

• Choice of ISP - eg eclipse and name me as your referrer with this code 'NEVHISITE'.  They are a business based service and do not put loads of adverts on your PC when you sign up. www.eclipse.co.uk
• Set up your own URL www.myname.co.uk then you can use an email address that isn't known or guessed by spammers.  Go to www.hisite.co.uk and get one for £50/yr brilliant!
• SPAM filter - don't pay a company that might be paid to allow sponsored stuff through - get an email program you train to filter the junk.   www.mozilla.com and download 'Thunderbird' fantastic just turn on junk filtering in the tools menu.
• Be careful who you give your email address to - if you sign up for things and don't want junk afterwards set up a gash email address gash@myname.co.uk then only collect from this address when you are waiting for a response from the site you subscribed to.  The rest of the time you just delete all emails in on that address.  Simple.
• Browsing the internet - use Thunderbird not Internet Explorer so sites don't install helpers and adverts that affect your browser.  Keep up to date with the latest version.  download from www.mozilla.com.

Simple and effective.