Topic: spam email protection

[holymoly]

has anyone got any good tips on how to prevent spam emails?

[Rik]

Your email provider will generally provide a good basic service, so make sure that's switched on. Your email client may also have a spam filter, so check that.

Failing that, try:

http://www.mailwasher.net/

Welcome to Pals. 

[sam]

the question is what, mail software are you using? Or are you using web mail?

[chorleydave]

I use Eprompter to check the origins of emails and then delete them on the server before they ever have the chance to reach my email client, Thnderbird.  For anything dodgy (such as free prize draws etc. which mean loads of spam, I use a GMail account.

[Simon]

I use MailWasher, which can also delete mail off the server, before it comes near your computer.

[Clive]

That's the beauty of having a Yahoo account too. 

[holymoly]

thanks for the replies. i use gmail and recently spam has become a bit of a problem.

i've heard of mailwasher and i'll definitely have a look at eprompter, it seems quite useful. the problem with mailwasher is you have to pay for the premium service.

is there anything similar that's free?

[Simon]

I believe Mailwasher is free, for one email account, but it's worth paying for, in my opinion.

[sam]

thanks for the replies. i use gmail and recently spam has become a bit of a problem.

but if you are using gmail, do you have it so it downloads to you machine? I use the webmail interface for gmail and I get one spam message into my inbox maybe once every 2 weeks. Gmail is very effective at removing the junk.

[sam]

if you have a linux machine (not sure about windows) you could use spam assassin - http://spamassassin.apache.org/.

[holymoly]

no i use gmail on the web but i still seem to be getting quite a bit of spam

i posted on a couple of other forums and someone suggested a mozilla add-on called cleanzer (i cant post the link - sorry)

it looks quite useful (although it can't do anything about the spam im already getting) but not many people have downloaded it. is it any good?

[Rik]

Never tried it, sorry.

[Simon]

I can't even find it - you can post a link by not making it a link, if you see what I mean, eg, pc-palsdotcom. 

[sam]

no i use gmail on the web but i still seem to be getting quite a bit of spam

well without redirecting the email elsewhere then I don't see how you can get between the spam and the gmail account. The thing about the ones that run on your machine is that intercept your incoming mail and then flag it as spam, whereas on gmail they do that for you - if you read it on the web then there is no way you can get in the middle of the process. All I can suggest is that you report it as spam inside of gmail and it will then learn and apart your spam filters. This is of course unless you are forwarding your email from some other account then maybe you can do something about it.

[Simon]

Time will tell, I guess.