Hiding Email Addresses

It's a well know fact that some spammers use automated scripts to crawl the Internet 24/7 in search of new email addresses. These scripts parse websites and documents, and will add any email address they find to a database that is then used to send out spam emails.
Sarven Capadisli compiled a huge list of options to hide the email address on the Internet to counter some of the robots crawling the Internet.
Most can only be used if you have certain rights on the website.The sevenths option for instance requires you to use JavaScript code to hide the email address on the website, and that is usually only possible if you have the rights to run code on a website. Since this is usually not the case if you are "just" an user of a site, you need to use other options instead for that.
Some tips nevertheless are really easy to adopt, for instance adding REMOVETHIS to the email address which would look like [email protected]. Most bots have problems with the options and its unlikely that someone checks the collected emails manually.
Update: Spammers have refined their methods and it is not recommended anymore to enter your email address on websites using any of the methods listed in the guide. While they may hide the address from some bots, more sophisticated bots use parsers to find out if email addresses have been obscured on a page.
A better solution is the use of so-called temporary email services. These services come in two main flavors. First, services that do not require registration and provide you with access to a publicly accessible email address, and second services that provide you with access to one or multiple personal emails that are forwarded to your real email. The second option has the advantage that only you have access to the emails.
The second option that you have, again only if you are a webmaster or have sufficient rights, is to use forms and other scripts to power contact options on your website.
This way you do not have to display the email address directly on the web page, which effectively means that bots won't record them when they crawl a website for email addresses.
A third option would be to direct users to a social media account instead. There they can contact you directly, provided that they have an account on the website as well. This can however mean that some users won't contact you because they do not have an account on the site, and do not want to create one as well.
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You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)
Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)
Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!
Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!