Using Webmail Wisely

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

Usually the default setting of social networking website is to allow anyone to see your profile. You can customise your settings to restrict access to only authorised people.

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-malware 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 . 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 malware, 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.