Spambots, spambots, spambots! Hope I can fry them ha! How to avoid them? use UNICODE-BIDI. But this is one of the many other methods around but I wanna talk about it in this post.
Lets use janedoe@example.com as the example. In order for an e-mail to avoid being harvested, dissect it by getting the first part which is the username, the @ symbol and transform it to [at], and lastly the domain and transform the dot/s to [dot]. As for Jane Doe’s email, it will be formatted as janedoe [at] example [dot] com. Not pretty at all.
In UNICODE-BIDI, text flow changes depending on how it will be used.
The Syntax
unicode-bidi: normal | embed | bid-override
Example
The Css
.changedirection { unicode-bidi: bidi-override; direction: rtl }
rtl means right-to-left so text will be read from right-to-left. The default is ltr which is left-to-right.
The Php
moc.elpmaxe@eodenaj
The result is janedoe@example.com
Browser Compatibility
Firefox: 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5
Safari: 1.3, 2.0, 3.1, 4.0
Opera: 9.2, 9.5, 10.0
Chrome: 2.0
IE: 8.0
Known Bugs
IE version 5.5 up to 7 are still buggy in floating elements combined with rtl and embed. It doesn’t support inherit.
Conclusion
There are many other methods that can be used like captcha. For me, I don’t use captcha just to show an e-mail address as my visitors will be annoyed and I will make them process their brain.