Using Webmail Wisely

This section provides some tips to end-users on using webmail wisely.

• Select only trusted and well-known webmail service providers.
  
• Configure your webmail accounts properly. Most free webmail service providers now provide a number of different options and security settings. Customise those settings so that:
  
  • The spam filtering feature is enabled,
    
  • All anti-virus functions are enabled, and
    
  • block HTML-formatted emails. Some emails appear in HTML format with a number of embedded images that may contain clickable web links and potential viruses. If your webmail client allows it, consider blocking HTML-formatted emails.
    
• Use a strong password
  
• If you use a public computer to check and read email, read the tips on how to use a public computer. If you access your webmail account using a shared computer, remember to clear the data in cache, cookies, and other temporary buffer space that might hold your email attachments before you leave the machine.
  
• Webmail also is just another form of email, so learning how to properly handle emails will be valuable.
  
• Beware of phishing.
  
• If you are using the webmail service provided by your ISP, check if the webmail account comes with sufficient security features such as protection from virus and malicious code, anti-spam filters, etc.
  
• Check the email storage size limits. There are often limitations on the total storage size of emails in your account(s) and on the size of attached files.
  
• Check the email deletion policy. Some webmail service providers will purge emails automatically after the date received, depending on a set period of time, e.g. 90 days.
  
• Check the email account disabling policy. Some webmail service providers will disable an active account if the user does not login for a certain pre-defined period of time, e.g. 180 days.