Virus warning and scam warnings

I have lately been receiving from well meaning friends emails telling me all about computer virus' or email scams or worse - spreading untruths by email. I am starting to get hacked off by this. I am sending an email to everyone in my address book to stop sending me these emails.
My view with all of this stuff is that any email which asks to be forwarded on to everyone of your contacts is almost certainly fake. With regards to virus warnings - if you are sending me a warning about a virus chances are its already been caught by my anti virus programme. In most cases the warning has been circulating for a number of years. So the warning while being well meaning is late. If you and I are going to get a virus we are going to get it on day one before the anti virus provider has been able to write an antidote for it. The email warning is too late.
I have noticed worryingly various emails being circulated that are downright libellous. People should be careful they could end up getting sued.
Forwarding messages only clogs up my inbox and the internet. Perhaps you can check the accuracy of the email before you send it. There are loads of good sites that will check this for you.
A google search with the subject of the email is a good place to start.
Follow this up with a search on hoax slayer (http://www.hoax-slayer.com/) and or snopes (http://www.snopes.com/). You can also search symantec's website (http://www.symantec.com/security_response/) and Mcafee (http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp). Please read what they say and not what you want it to say.
If you don't want to get hit by a virus use a good antivirus software. There are plenty of free software around such as avast, avg and kaspersky. Use them with a good malware programme and you shoud be fine. If you don't have these installed then please don't send me emails and if you get a virus then you don't deserve to own a computer!!
Finally do not open a file or document from someone you don't know.
I am in a separate post going to put up information on emails that i have come across that are fake. I will keep updating as I go along.
Thanks for listening.