Hide your email using an encoded email address to fight spam

[Keith]

This is a simple enhancement I recently implemented as a result of a really cool utility found and supplied by Hivelogic. It's an email encoder using javascript which is difficult for the email Spambots to harvest, thus hiding the email address found on the bottom of the Forums page "Contact Us". The following was in an email from my host for more info, along with instructions.

Everyone is sick of spam, and it\'s getting worse. There are some things you can do to reduce the amount of spam you get, and make yourself a less attractive target for spammers in the future. One way to fight back is to make your email \"mailto\" links less attractive for spammers - check out:
http://oneworldhosting.com/encoder.php

BACKUP YOUR DATABASE FIRST!!!

1. Go to Hivelogic first and fill in the boxes with the info you want. (http://www.hivelogic.com/safeaddress/)

2. Copy the javascript code from the resulting screen and paste it into a notepad.

3. Find the "footer" Template and open.

4. Find the code:
<a href="$contactuslink">Contact Us</a>

5. Replace with the code you copied from the Hivelogic Email Encoder.

6. Save/Submit changes

I've done this on version 2.2.5 without any issues, don't know about others. I'm not a programmer and not a hacker, so I won't have answers to many questions.

[Lesane]

Pretty neat, thanks. :)

[filburt1]

I'd recommend a well-written server-side e-mail form, but each to his own.

[Keith]

Lesane, thanks for the comment.

I'm not familiar with the server side email form idea Filburt1 mentions. I've had others tell me the email form is another good way to foil email farming. This was just something real quick and easy for me to implement, hence the reason I thought I'd share it. Sometimes the easy and most simple changes are overlooked in our quest to improve things. :)

[M1th]

Neat! Though, I use an email form. :)

Keith, If you are using vB3, you can use the email form which comes with it. :)

[Dean C]

Everyone seems to be doing this these days - javascript encryption - interesting :)