I don't know what silly game the developer is playing but my advice is unequivocal — stay away from this ill-conceived bit of rubbish!
It is unwise to put a regular email on a web site. An unsuspecting user might put this in the HTML code of a web site:
<a href="mailto:sales@website.com?subject=General mail">email us</a>
Try viewing that in your web browser and you will see what happens. You will generate an email addressed to sales@website.com with "General mail" in the subject line.
The problem is that spammers send robots out searching for email addresses to add to their mailing lists. Within hours, your email address will be added.
The solution is to use ASCII codes in the HTML to disguise the address. If you go to (for example) <http://www.wbwip.com/wbw/emailencoder.html> and enter the above email address, the following will be generated automatically for you:
sales@website.com
which you put in place of the regular email address.
Your HTML code now looks like this
<a href="mailto: sales@website.com?subject=General mail">email us</a>
and everyone's browser will still perform as intended but your address will be invisible to spammer assholes..
By contrast, this useless little widget will generate something totally unhelpful when you enter the email address as required. The output looks like this
<script type="text/javascript">eval(unescape("%64%6f%63%75%6d%65%6e%74%2e%77%72%69%74%65%28%27%3c%61%20%68%72%65%66%3d%22%6d%61%69%6c%74%6f%3a%73%61%6c%65%73%40%77%65%62%73%69%74%65%2e%63%6f%6d%22%3e%73%61%6c%65%73%40%77%65%62%73%69%74%65%2e%63%6f%6d%3c%2f%61%3e%27%29%3b"));</script>
which, when put into a web page, achieves nothing! People will laugh and you will get no mail.
obfuscatr
Email address obfuscator.
Version: 1.2.0
Waste of space!
Feedback Type: Review
Contributed by: grh-svo Thursday, January 24 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST
Product Platform: MacOSX
Used Product For: Less than a month
Recommend Product: NO
Overall Rating:
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Re: Waste of space! - rmwc
grh-svo: you are talking out of your back side.
obfuscatr 1.1.0 does everything that you refer it doesn't in a much more sophisticated way than just outputting HTML-encoding. Read more.
Program has been tested and proven safe using multiple spam bots on the encoding it provides.
obfuscatr is also going to be featured on upcoming complimentary CD-ROM of Macworld Italy.
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Saturday, January 26 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST