The GITS Blog

Some day, I'll tell young translators about how I used to translate when there was no Google the way crusty old veterans today tell me about writing out translations longhand and hand-carrying them to clients.

Truly, this Interweb thingy has grown indispensable to most working translators, both as a research tool and a way to communicate and exchange data with clients.

The problem is, the ratio of spam, ads, malware, and general assorted crap keeps increasing. I follow several technical mailing lists in my field. I also post my email on my website. As a result, I would say that at least half of the email I receive is spam.

I also browse a lot of different websites as I do research for my translations, whether it's to find a Japanese company's English name, or to search for technical terms to see how they're used. Because of this, I visit a lot of sites that use JavaScript and Flash in annoying or even malicious ways.

Despite all this, I'm really not bothered by spam or malware. Here is the setup I use to achieve this.

Email

I use Outlook (not Outlook Express) for email. These are my settings.

1. Under Tools >> Options >> Preferences, set Email Options to "Read all standard mail in plaintext" and "Read all digitally signed mail in plaintext." That will eliminate just about all email exploits.
2. While you're at it, click Tracking Options, and select "Never send a response" to requests for receipt. I found a lot of spammers use this trick to confirm "live" addresses.
3. Install SpamBayes, and train it.
4. Set up filters for each client, and each mailing list you are subscribed to. In SpamBayes, filter your inbox and each of the mailing-list folders, but not your clients' folders (that ensures that email from your clients never gets dumped in the spam folder, even when the email looks spammy — like one-liner "Thanks" emails). You may also have to whitelist your clients in Outlook's built-in Junk E-mail filter.

Internet

First, if you are using Internet Explorer, dump it. Get Firefox, along with the following extensions: Adblock Plus, NoScript, and Flashblock.

With this setup, you should be safe from most of the annoying and malicious sites out there. Even so, you should always be cautious!

Also, if you use your work computer for (ahem!) non-work browsing, you may want to get something like Google Safe Browsing.

Conclusion

The setup of a battened down Outlook and Firefox with safe-browsing extensions ought to help you work in today's spammy, malicious online world without getting too much crap stuck to your shoes.