Masker

Hides email addresses from spammers as PNG image files.
 

Masker Review

Produces PNG files (image files similar to GIFs, but smaller) that contain your email address. When you post them on your website, it is harder for spammer to harvest them. You can include the generated image files in the HTML on your website with: code like this: [a href="../image/mailto/roedy.png"]email me[/a] (pretend [] are angle brackets) or [mg src="image/mailto/roedy.png" height="24" width="186" alt="my email address"] You can also mention your email address in public postings like this: For my email address see http://mindprod.com/image/mailto/roedy.png It can be read by humans, but it would be more difficult for automation to harvest the name for spam lists. You can run it without installing at http://mindprod.com/applet/masker.html You can also run it standalone as an application with java -jar masker.jar It also tells you what it should be sending. To install, Extract the zip download with Winzip, available from http://www.winzip.com (or similar unzip utility) into any directory you please, often C:\ -- ticking off the "user folder names" option. To run as an application, type: java -jar C:\com\mindprod\masker\masker.jar adjusting as necessary to account for where the jar file is. See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/mung.html for other techniques to foil spam email harvesters. The Applet must be signed to allow it to save the png image on your local hard disk.