It is a good idea to have one exclusive account for personal (spam free) use and another for filling out forms, entering competitions or just giving out to new acquaintances.

By following these guidelines, you should notice a significant reduction in junk e-mails.

To create a new account: Go to the Hotmail home page (www.hotmail.com) and click the Sign Up button on the main page. Under Account Information, enter a username with a combination of letters, underscore and numbers: e.g. 2_be_free@hotmail.com (make it sound memorable and make the secret question and password difficult for others to guess) When asked about newsletters, unless you want this type of mail, do not sign up for newsletters. Once complete, take a second to set your junk mail filters. Click here for a guide. Add only the contacts you wish to receive mail from. Click here for a guide. Add and delete people from an e-mail safe list. Click here for a guide.

Please keep the answers to your password, secret question and profile questions in mind if you are contacted by strangers (or somebody you suspect to be a stranger) whilst using our service. A commonly used secret question when setting up a Hotmail account is ‘What is your favourite pet’s name’. A stranger has only to turn the conversation to pets in order to fish for the secret answer to your Passport account, and if you mention it in all innocence, then that person can gain access to your account.