Having tried everything I can think of to reduce mostly porno spam on my son's computer (mine is OK) I think it is probably time to change his email address. He had a total of 178 emails yesterday! How do you do this in Outlook Express? Do you have to ring someone, or can you do it more easily....

To change your address you have to contact your internet service provider and generally pay a fee. At least that's the way to do it in my area.

If you want to change an e-mail address that was provided to you by your ISP, you'd have to contact them, like fjohn said. Some ISP's allow you to have more than one e-mail address per account for free, some charge you for it or don't allow it at all.

After you've gotten a different e-mail address you have to change the settings in Outlook Express, so that the program "knows" that it has to go get the mail some place else. I know how to do that, but since I'm using a Dutch version of the program I don't think my explanation would make much sense. I don't know how the menu names are translated in English.

By the way, if your ISP charges you too much for a different e-mail address, you could always consider taking a hotmail address. It works with Outlook Express, although I don't know if the spam will stay away for long...

ISPs usually give the option of creating a number of secondary (or alternative) e-mail addresses. As has been said, you'd need to find out how to do that with the ISP he uses. I can create secondary e-mail address by going into my account via the ISP's web site. Perhaps he could do the same.

The only trouble with just using a secondary address is that it doesn't kill off the original e-mail address created when the account was opened (called the primary e-mail address). You can use just ignore this address and use an alternative one but the SPAM will still build up on it in the background. Sooner or later, the e-mail space allowed by the ISP will fill up. I expect he might then be asked by the ISP to delete the junk e-mails to clear the space. My ISP will automatically delete any e-mails older than 3 months and will send out a reminder to delete them if the inbox fills up before that.

So I think changing the primary e-mail address is the right course of action. This will present the spammers with a non-address once it is done, so no build up of SPAM anywhere. Furthermore, this method of avoiding SPAM doesn't involve any software.

I changed my primary e-mail address a while ago and haven't regretted it. The drawback of doing this is that it is tied up with the ISP account details used for logging on and for them to communicate with you etc. My ISP didn't charge anything for changing the account details but perhaps some might.

When the primary e-mail address is changed, he might like to consider creating two secondary e-mail addresses. One for giving out to friends and another for online purposes such as buying goods online etc. By doing this he won't ever have to use, or disclose, the primary e-mail address to anyone, so it will never again be at risk of getting into the hands of spammers. Remember that changing the primary e-mail address is not so easy as changing secondary ones, so it is good to guard it well. Secondary ones can be just dumped at any time if they become troublesome and new ones easily created. It also doesn't involve changing any login details.

The old address will need deleting from Outlook Express and any new ones will need entering into it. The procedure is fairly straightforward. Just go into: Tools > Accounts > Mail and click the Add button, choose Mail from the menu and complete the boxes that show up.