Eating Spam in a Can

[Prelude76]

just seeing how everyone is coping with Spam these days.I only receive about 5-10 junk mails a week (been lucky at keeping my personal email safe), but even those few are annoying.I've recently started trying out Mozilla Mail Junk Control, in 1.4b, and so far, I'm quite impressed. The first few junk mails I got, I marked them as junk. After about 10 being marked as junk, now all junk mail goes to Junk Folder (which is purged every 2 days by my settings). Once i have 100% faith in the system, i might just get the junkmail killed instantly.Apparently, it uses the baysien (sp?) method. no rules need to be set. It figures out the rules automatically, based on what you *mark* as junk. it wont work right away, but seems to get good after just 10 or so marked emails.What system are u using and what success are you having? and is it free or commercial?My junk mail is very low to begin with. would like to see if someone with crazy amount of email has good success with Mozilla's junk controls.

[GolfProRM]

So far, using Thunderbird's junk controls, I haven't had much luck... I've been marking all the junkmail I get as junk, but it still isn't catching much... I get about 10-15 junkmails a day, and if I'm lucky, it'll catch one... I'm guessing this has more to do with the fact that the program is in alpha stages though... Hopefully it'll get fixed soon!

[Agent007]

IF anyone is planning to go in for ur own domain (about 5MB should be enough, out here its about $20) consider going in for a GNU/Linux server..They usually have CPANEL installed with SpamAssasin. Once setup, it does a pretty good job of blocking SPAM at the server.

[Borst]

I have been using ChoiceMail from DigiPortal.com on my Win98 PC. It has worked rather well but is a bit pricey at $40. Since then I have gone to dual booting (RedHat 9). In RH, I have been using Ximian for email. I have set up a filtering scheme to move all known good mail (aka whitelist) to appropriate folders. Everything else gets tossed in the "spam" folder. I quickly review the spam folder to make sure nothing useful was missed. I am getting about 5 spams per day.Other things I have done to reduce spam: 1. Check for and remove spyware. Also, I do not permit 3rd party cookies.2. I never open a spam email. I never reply to get off their list.3. Use throw away yahoo accounts for some stuff.4. I disable HTML in my mail program.I did have a spike recently where my spam suddenly went to 30 per day. It lasted for about a week. I think this sudden influx was due to a security breech at eBay. One of their databases was unsecure for a couple of hours. I am pretty sure thats how my address wound up in the hands of spammers.I have not tried a Bayersian program. It seems like that approach is the most promising. Once my filters were set, I spend only seconds a day dealing with spam. So that approach is what has worked for me.PS: This seems like a pretty cool forum. Hope to become more involved here.Borst

[nlinecomputers]

I use POPfile which is a bayesian based filter. It is a seperate program but used with OUTclass for Outlook(sorry no Outlook Express or Eurdora) it works quite well. OUTclass is a front in for POPfile that functions as a "snap-in" in outlook adding a new toolbar for managing your mail. POPfile is really a mail manager that sorts mail based on content. So I use it to sort all my email not just spam.And of course you can't beat the price.

[ross549]

I have had my own domain for a little over three years. The only place I NEVER place my e-mail is the e-card sites. If I want to send an e-card, I use my kustom-krafted spamthis accound at my domain.Voila! I get little or no spam, even with my e-mail address on my home page.Of course the "spamthis" account is flooded all the time....

[Guest ThunderRiver]

OT: Spam tastes soo salty when you eat it off the can.. yucky heh

[old jack]

I average about 8 spams per day, about 8 legitimate mails per day, and since the spring of 02 I had been averaging several Klez mails per week. My spam has slowly increased over the years & will probably continue to increase. I have used the same permanent address since 1996. I am careful about giving out the address now, but I once had it on my web pages. Even though I set up filters in my Netscape mail that directed most spam to the trash folder, I was still being notified when ANY mail arrived, including spam. I wanted to be notified only when I got legitimate mail.I tried Spamweasel. I'm sure it's a good product for some people, but my Netscape mail kept crashing until I got rid of it. Now I pay $30 per year for a spamcop.net e-mail account. Mail is forwarded from my permanent address into my spamcop.net account, and, after filtering, spamcop.net forwards it into my POP account with my ISP. (It would also be possible, by changing your POP mail settings, for spamcop.net to POP your ISP's mail, filter it & then deliver the legitimate mail to you by POP mail.) A list of blocked e-mails (showing subject line, date and sender of each e-mail) is in a "Held Mail" folder that I can view on the web. I can preview a particular mail (as text-only, which will not trigger web bugs) and, if it's mail I want to receive, I can forward it to my POP inbox & whitelist the sender. Mails are deleted from the "Held Mail" folder if they are not forwarded or trashed in 14 days.Klez and other virus mail isn't held. Instead, a notice is sent that a virus was stopped (unless an option to suppress the notices is selected). I suppress the notices, so the Klez just disappears--I never see it.The main filter is spamcop.net's list of blocked IP addresses, and they allow users to add other blacklists to block all IP addresses from certain spammy countries, block open relays, etc. (The more blacklists you use, the greater the chance of false positives, but I've picked the blacklists that work for me.) There is also a personal blacklist that I use to block all senders whose addresses end with .es, .ru, .fr, mail.com, and other domains or countries from which I don't want any mail.Spamcop.net subscribers are encouraged to use spamcop.net's spam reporting system to report the spam in their "held mail" folders. Reporting is not mandatory, however, and I just delete the spam instead of reporting it. (My goal is to avoid dealing with spam at all.)So far, spamcop.net has blocked 300+ spams and has let 13 spams get through. There have been two false positives: one was a promotional mailing from an airline and the other was a promotional mailing from a hotel chain. Since I want to receive those mailings, I whitelisted them.I was reluctant at first to pay money to get rid of spam, but this has been money well spent.

[siebkens]

Mailwasher Pro is the answer for me. Especially since I have a 56K dialup part of the time. Delete spam at the server & don't even download it. My Hotmail account is MUCH easier to use with Mailwasher too.

[littlebone]

I run a freeware program "MailInspector 2000". It lists all of the e-mails waiting on my POP3 servers. I delete all of the spams manually and then get the remaining valid mails using Outlook. MailInspector allows me to open the mails without saving them anywhere.Advantages:

• It's free
• It's (relatively) simple

Disadvantages to this technique:

• The manual part.
• The (relatively) part. If my spam count (about 10 a day) goes up a lot, this could become more bothersome and labor intensive.
• Any spam that hits a serverafter I have used MI 2000 to clear out the garbage, but before Outlook has run its collector, will get sucked into Outlook.

[Cluttermagnet]

I run a freeware program "MailInspector 2000". It lists all of the e-mails waiting on my POP3 servers. I delete all of the spams manually and then get the remaining valid mails using Outlook. MailInspector allows me to open the mails without saving them anywhere.Advantages:

• It's free
• It's (relatively) simple

Disadvantages to this technique:

• The manual part.
• The (relatively) part. If my spam count (about 10 a day) goes up a lot, this could become more bothersome and labor intensive.
• Any spam that hits a serverafter I have used MI 2000 to clear out the garbage, but before Outlook has run its collector, will get sucked into Outlook.

Your "Mailinspector 2000" freeware sounds very much like the "Mailwasher" freeware, with the exception that Mailwasher also provides the capability to send official-looking 'bounce' emails to the spammer if you care to get into that sort of thing. Probably only a very few bounces actually cause any spammer any grief or inconvenience (but it's the thought that counts). Regarding your Disadvantage #3, you are just not using the best email client. Check out Pegasus 4.11 email client. It is freeware and is a darn good utility. If you are willing to put up with a bit of a learning curve to master it, you will thank yourself later for trying it. Pegasus 4.11 One of my favorite features in Pegasus (among many) is the ability to screen emails while they are still on your ISP server. You view a downloaded header list (displays subject lines only unless you click up the complete header). You choose and mark which, if any, to download, and you can also delete emails unread on the server. Because of this simple feature, you will never find that you have downloaded obvious spam, just because it snuck through after you used Mailinspector 2000 but before you performed your download with Outlook. BTW I have been surprised just how often this timing coincidence actually happens. Seems like about once a week I see the odd spam sneak in right after I ran Mailwasher. Yes, those zany spammers are a very active bunch. You can also rest assured that you are using a safer email client than Outlook or Outlook express- Pegasus, Eudora, and Pocomail are all good ones that I have liked. Remember- if you have been careless and have not set up your defaults right, you can get clobbered by self-executing macros sent in emails. Regarding Disadvantage #1, I agree things could get out of hand at some point, but so far I have been entirely satisfied to always screen my email manually with Mailwasher and/or Pegasus "Selective Download". I use no filtering whatever, other than what my ISP may be using (unknown).

[Cluttermagnet]

I average about 8 spams per day, about 8 legitimate mails per day, and since the spring of 02 I had been averaging several Klez mails per week.  My spam has slowly increased over the years & will probably continue to increase.  I have used the same permanent address since 1996. I am careful about giving out the address now, but I once had it on my web pages. (snip)

This sounds almost exactly like my situation. I see anywhere from perhaps 5 to 15 spam emails per day on my POP server. I consider that amount manageable. Although I have several 'throwaway' internet-based email accounts, I rarely use them. It has been more a matter of trying to remember to check them about monthly so they don't get cancelled. One of them is in the Lycos group, and gets fairly heavily spammed, but only something like 100-150 in an entire month or more. Like you, I had my email on my website, and at some point I realized that this was drawing spam, but my web page quickly grew to some 60+ related pages, and making the change en masse is going to take an hour or two some day. There are a couple of clever methods of allowing your email to display to site visitors but not to spiders. I may crank that in at some point.BTW my ISP allows additional free email accounts. Both my primary and secondary addresses are short- 4 to 6 characters short. I have found that alphabet attacks must be very common, as even the 6-character ID gets spammed lightly, though I have made very little use that ID since setting it up, and never gave it up to anybody other than a couple of normal 'civilian' recipients.

[Prelude76]

OT: Spam tastes soo salty when you eat it off the can.. yucky heh

it's actually pretty yummy when fried up and served with mustard on a toasted rye bread... ah, the college cuisine

[Gus K]

I use SBC/Yahoo DSL. All my mail goes through the Yahoo mail server, then to OE. Yahoo's bulk mail filter catches quite a few but not all. Recently I started using MailWasher (free, although I donated $5). For me the results are simply amazing, after only 2 days of 'bouncing' I am almost completely spam free. Having it load minimized at start up also means I no longer have to open OE to check to see if I have mail (it checks at start up and alerts you if you have mail). It is also great for deleting any suspicious mail before it is pulled off the server.