The computer desktop has become a noisy place. For every hour we spend working productively, we spend another fighting spam, blocking pop-ups, silencing notifications and puzzling through overcomplicated cookie alerts.
It shouldn’t be like that – and it doesn’t need to be. The devices and programs you use every day, including your browser, your phone and even Windows itself, provide the tools you need to fight back. All you need to do is configure them. Here are some simple measures you can take to reduce the interruptions and regain your focus.
Email spam
Email spam is a fact of online life, and while you can reduce the volume you receive by being cautious about where you share your email address, it’s impossible to stay spam-free. Web services such as Gmail and Outlook offer a few basic tools to tweak spam detection: you can nominate which addresses should never go to the spam folder, to cut down on false positives, and identify specific addresses that should always be blocked.
If you manage your own email address you have a lot more control. The open-source SpamAssassin tool from Apache () is a popular option, and has been protecting inboxes for more than 20 years. It’s usually enabled at the server level, so if you’re using a hosted email service look for it in your provider’s management interface. For example, if your provider
