Spam on Spam

[Emmaxxx]

Hiya

A few spam emails I can tollerate, but at the rate it's increasing in my inbox, now close to 100 aday, it's got beyond the joke. Trying to unsubscribe to them, has made matters worse.

Please could someone recommend a prog to eliminate this junk from littering my hard drive.

I'm using Outlook Express on WinXP.

Thanxxx
M

 

[stone_burner]

Hi Em.

You should never unsubscribe to spam. All it does is confirm that your email addy is valid.

 

[sergio]

MailWasher does a very good job to fight against spam
pro version : _http://www.firetrust.com/_
free version : _http://www.mailwasher.net/_

Avoid the bounce method

 

[VIPER_1069]

agreed MAILWASHER gets my vote ...my pop3 mail (works for others too eg hotmail) has never looked so healthy lol

just delete anything that you dont need on the server before it has chance to download

only download stuff you need

 

[The-poacher]

ditto re mailwasher

 

[PC-GUY]

ditto ditto re mailwasher

 

[dx]

You should never unsubscribe to spam. All it does is confirm that your email addy is valid.

Indeed... you should never do this. This is in part why things, as you say, "made matters worse." Best to use a proggie like Mailwasher. It should help get rid of all those insipid viagra spams.

 

[LTR12101B]

If it's not too big a hassle, change your email address (your ISP may have an option), and then guard it carefully.

NEVER allow it to be visible and validly formatted - do NOT post email addresses in the clear on this forum, as it is spidered by many search engines - a simple human readable variant is to use (at) instead of @

Do not use easily guessable names - once the spammers have name01, they'll be trying name02, name03 and so on.

And, if you can be bothered, try www.spamcop.net - they can make anonymous complaints for you - and it sometimes works... especially if you dig (one idiot used the same faked sender address so often, that the organization had an info page about it - added that to notes) - I'd had that spam a few times - NEVER AGAIN

 

[Emmaxxx]

Thank you all for your replies

Will give mailwasher a try, sounds like the way to go. However, I still have to physically go through a lot of headers to delete them. Can the Junk be filtered in anyway?

M
XXX

 

[banzibaby]

Yep Mailwasher pro allows U to create user filters so anything in the subject or body that U specify can be set to automatically mark the for deletion in the spam tools options

BaNzI

 

[bionic]

Couple of tips :
Block email clients from loading external images
Block all other connections than imap,pop3 and smtp
View all emails as plain txt
Never allow activex or java in mails

 

[jaapf]

I don't know how I do it, but for now I'm still reasonably Spam-free.

Maybe it's because I don't fill in my mail adress everywhere on the net?

BTW: Get a free mailadress wich you use if it's really necesarry to fill out a form with a mail adress. Might it get spammed to an intollarble amount, just get rid of it and get yourself a new one.

And yes, never ever reply or unsubscribe to shit like that.....

 

[LTR12101B]

Outlook Express can do SOME filtering on it's own, if you set the rules right.

You can block one type of spam (I call it "BCC Spam") by rejecting any mesage that does not contain YOUR address in either the TO: field (and if you expect anyone to carbon Copy you, in th CC: field) - you probably need to exempt any mailing lists you are on from this rule.

I've messed around with rulesets for a while, and the usual order of rules progression that works well, is to start with well-defined ALLOW rules (which need do no more than "Stop processing any more rules"), before moving to block rules based on that address trick, or on subject words.

If the criteria can be determined from the header, "Delete from server" will work - one example is that you can't determin attachments at that point, but you CAN do a size check... - a little-used acount of mine that was getting incoming viruses, is guarded by a max size check

 

[big_gie]

For web forms, you can try http://www.mailinator.com/ to create a temporary email account. really great and free!

I know that Thunderbird can filter spams (I never tryed it myslef), and is a MUCH MORE secure email client than Outlook!!! Thunderbird v0.4 is more than great!!! Give it a try

 

[Emmaxxx]

Sorry for my late reply. I changed my email addy here at the forum and couldn't activate the account.....doh! No thanks to hotmail.

Anyways,
I've applied message rules in Outlook to 'where the subject line contains specific words'. This as filtered out a fair number, especially those irratating viagra and manhood one's but still others litter my inbox.

How do I apply the rule to reject any mesage that does not contain my address in either the TO: field and the CC: field?

Thank you
Emma
xxx

 

[LTR12101B]

Tools, Mail Rules.

Where the To or CC line contains people
Enter your email addresses that you use (and MAYBE the your actual name) - if you use the name ONLY, then the rule will only apply when the correct name is used.

Now at the moment, the rule selects those which DO contain, so select OPTIONS and change it to "does not".

Now you can choose your disposal method, since this is something which can be header assessed, "Delete from Server" is the most aggressive option, but until you know the rule works correctly, better to move it to a junk folder.

It might catch too many, or it might catch none at all - my latest batch of spam (characteristically all from ONE pest by the look of it), is NOT BCC style, but I've had BCC type spam before now.

Remember, mailing lists and often legitimate opt-in mailshots will usually need an optout, so give them a suitable detect and "Stop processing rules" before you apply this trap.

 

[Emmaxxx]

Sorted!

Thank you LTR12101B, Most appreciated.

Thanx to everyone else with their suggestions....very useful !

Feeling alot happier now

M
XXX