hiding your website mailto address

updated mon 2 feb 04

Bob Masta on sun 1 feb 04

I have been asked off-list about my simple image method
for stopping spammers from harvesting the Email address
from a Website Mailto link. I'm posting the method here
in case others might want to try it.

It's not a complete substitute for Mailto; the user will
need to read your address from the image and then send
you Email in the conventional way.

To create the image, open Windows Paint (from the
Programs - Accessories group) and click on the 'A' icon
to enter text. You will be given a chance to select a
typeface and font size. I prefer to use something a bit
large, like a 16 or 18-point font. Type your Email
address, resizing the box width if needed to get it all
on one line.

Now resize the entire image area to just enclose your
text, by dragging the little border "handles". On some
systems, you may not be able to drag the top and left
borders; if yours is like this, you should place your
text in the upper left to begin with, or else you will
need to do some cutting and pasting.

Now go to File - Save As and select GIF format. (Some
early Win95 systems don't have this option. You'll need
to save as Monochrome Bitmap and use another utility to
convert. There is a freeware utility called BMP2GIF that
you can find via Google.) Name your file something like
Contact.gif; nothing with your address itself in it.

This will make a tiny file, less than 1K. Save it to the
directory on your hard drive that holds the master copy
of your Website. On your Web page, add some descriptive
text like "Contact me at:" and then add


Fire up your browser and have a look at this page while
still on your drive. You may decide you want to change
the default white image background to match the page, or
change the font size, etc. Go back to Paint and tweak
away. When you're happy, upload the new page and the GIF
file. That's it!

Of course, you can get fancier and add color or even
superimpose your text on another image. Maybe you can
use this to justify a big "splash screen" image for
your site... ;-)

Hope this helps!







Robert Masta
dqatech@daqarta.com

D A Q A R T A
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
Shareware from Interstellar Research
www.daqarta.com

Geoffrey Gaskell on mon 2 feb 04

Bob Masta's solution to this problem seems rather intricate and
ingenious. There is, however, a very simple alternative. Set up one of
those free email accounts on yahoo or hotmail etc and use only that
address for your websites and make sure you keep your normal email
account well away from your website.

Also, don't bother with a Guestbook - it just encourages a certain type
of person to leave rubbish in there to claim their 15 minutes of fame.
If someone genuinely wishes to congratulate the website owner on their
genius, they will send an email to the mailto address.

Bob Masta wrote:

>I have been asked off-list about my simple image method
>for stopping spammers from harvesting the Email address
>from a Website Mailto link.
>
>