If you’re going to do something stupid with your computer, chances are, it’s going to involve email.

First and foremost, don’t click on email links or open attachments unless you are 100% POSITIVE they’re safe. Just don’t.

Second, don’t reply to email messages from strangers. No one is going to send you money for “helping” them. I promise you, you’re not missing out. (You will, however, be missing out if you don’t click on that link and read Eric’s “replies” to spammers.)

But there’s a little bit more to it, and there are ways to tell if a link is likely to be safe or not.

First, let’s talk about hyperlinks.

If you are reading your email through a web browser, when you hold your cursor over a hyperlink (WITHOUT CLICKING) a little box typically appears in the lower left corner of your window giving you the URL (uniform resource locator) for that link. Nine times out of ten, looking at that URL will tell you if a hyperlink is what it’s supposed to be. If the text of your hyperlink says “SHOP BOB’S MARKET!” and the text that appears when you hold your cursor over that link is something like http://bobsmarket.com/sale.php you can see that those two things match up pretty closely.

Where it becomes tricky is when a hyperlink says one thing, but the hover URL says something else entirely. I can write text that says http://bobsmarket.com/sale.php but make the link go somewhere else entirely. If you see that, you can be almost certain the link is to a spam site.

Here’s something else to keep in mind–if you have not given a company your email address, chances are it’s a spammer trying to hoax you. If you have signed up to receive sale notices from Lowes or King Arthur Flour or some other company you like, then you can use the above method to check that the links are correct. But if you’ve never asked a company to send you emails? Go ahead and delete without reading–and certainly so NOT click on any of those hyperlinks or open any of those attachments.

But what if you’re afraid your account HAS been compromised? In that case, go to the site by typing the URL for that site into your web browser (paypal.com or amazon.com) and then log in and check and see if you have any alerts or messages.

Got that? Good. Now don’t forget it.

Next, let’s talk a bit about how you use your email.

Usually, when you register for products or buy things online, you’re required to give an email address. Which is perfectly fair.

The problem is that EVERYTHING then comes to this email address: emails from your aunt/niece, recall notices from your product registration, sale notices from your favorite shoe store, etc.

Here’s the thing: You don’t have to have only one email address. You can–and should–create an email address that you use just for registering for products and shopping. Then use your “main” email address for communicating with friends and family.

I have a yahoo account that I use for shopping and registrations etc, and a gmail account that I use for email with friends and family etc. I keep both open in my web browser, but check the yahoo mail tab far less frequently.

The best part of this is that when I get email in my gmail account, it’s almost always email I WANT to receive, as opposed to junk.

Additionally, Gmail (and many other email providers) allow you to download your email to your own computer, using a program such as Outlook or Thunderbird. I’m a HUGE fan of Gmail and having all my email accessible from any computer and my phone. But I also like the security of having everything downloaded to my computer. Just In Case.

But for the most part, if you keep in mind those first two rules: don’t click on links/attachments and don’t reply to strangers, you’ll be fine.