OT: How the heck do you get rid of all that spam mail

General Knitting
1

I dunno. I thought I had this conquered. I wasn’t getting any junk mail for a long time and then, like a dope, I guess I went to some site and filled something out or something??? Anyhow, all of a sudden I’m getting 15 to 20 messages every morning, usually same people. junk junk junk

Last year I changed my email address because that was happening and that stopped the problem but now I really like my email name and I don’t WANT to change it again. I have Norton for viruses. Is there some trick here to stop them?

My dh said you should NEVER click on the unsubscribe coz then they know your’re a live fish. I’ve been blocking them for a few days but it takes like 15 minutes every morning to do that. ARGGGGGGGGGGG

:wall: I hate these people.

2

well first of all, get a junk e-mail address and only use that on sites that you aren’t sure about.

don’t unsubscribe…that is true…again, unless it is a site you are sure about (like i unsubscribed from target.com but not from hotbabes.com {yeah i made that one up…i promise…lol})

and really all you can do is just keep junking them. mark them as spam and if your norton has the spam filter on it, turn the filter up high and then be willing to go through your junk mail folder to find the good stuff.

my yahoo gets about 200 or so junk e-mails a week but it is pretty good about putting them in the junk mail folder. my home account gets maybe 20 but i know they are sites that truly are just fishing since almost nobody has that e-mail address.

when you give your e-mail address online in a forum like this, spell it out…don’t use the @ or dot symbols. less chance of getting snagged in the phishing programs, though i am sure they are catching on to that and programming around it.

3

Also download a program called adaware. Use it to check for spyware (small cookies and tracking programs installed in the background as you browse the web). Some of these send data back to sites which include email addresses which are held in your cache. Clean your cache out regularly.

4

You two are great to answer so fast! Thank you so much.
I’ve always ignored this stuff until it’s too late, but I never learned it properly to start with. Like I don’t even know where my junk file is…

I’m going to turn up the filter now (never did that), clean the cache (have done that once or twice but forget) and will download that other program Mulene. That’s a good one too Bredajos about the 2nd email name. THANKS MUCH :muah:

5

There is also a site called www.bugmenot.com that you can use to access some sites that want you to register to see their content. You put in the site name and it gives you a username and password to log in with. It doesn’t work for everything, but it can be a great resource. :smiley:

6

I agree you should download a free copy of adware/spyware and run your adware about once a week. Takes a few minutes but it is worth it. You should also check your email settings as most email sites now have settings where you can control blocking to a certain extent. There is stuff that gets around a pop up blocker no matter what you do so that is where using your adware comes in. Also, you should go to your start button, all programs, assessories, system tools, disc clean up and clean up internet files that way to help your machine run more effeciently. I usually do this when I do my adware clean up.

7

What has saved me from getting no spam at all is I have a free email accounty from Yahoo. Anything that wants me to give them my email that I am not sure about, I give them my Yahoo account. I download free game trials from Big Fish and Real Games and they only get my Yahoo email. I just checked it and there are 37 spams sitting in the bulk folder. Not sure if that helps you now but in the future, it could keep the spams away.

8

Sadly, there is not much that can be done about SPAM. You can get a better SPAM filter, but there is no way to stop the SPAM from being sent. They have passed laws in this country that make it illegal, but that doesn’t stop people in other contries. (Namely China)

You might check to see if your AntiVirus software has SPAM filtering enabled. You can also try to turn up the level of SPAM filtering. Just keep in mind that the stricter the SPAM filtering rules, the more likely it is that it might be filtering out stuff you actually want.

You can also upgrade your email client application. I know that Outlook 2003 is much better at SPAM filtering than older versions.

9

Programs like AdAware and Spyware Blaster (I use both) can help your computer in general, but they really don’t help with spam emails as I understand it. There are several things that can help, but nothing will completely get rid of it. This is information I was told and it makes sense.

  1. Get a junk email addy (I use Yahoo). I also have one for forums and my private one for family and close friends.
  2. Never click on unsubscribe unless you know the company (Like Gap, Target, etc) Those random “you win!” and “morgage company” emails, etc are a nono.
  3. Never send bulk emails. Always use BCC and tell your friends and family to do the same. Some trojans and spambots go through and send viruses or spam to emails in your system. If they are BCC they can’t see them.
  4. Ask your cable company or server if they have spam software. My cable company does and it deletes known spam at the server so I never see it. I do get some, but not near as much as I used to.
10

If I had a dollar for every e-mail I get on my Yahoo account telling me I won the UK Sweepstakes, offering me a chance to take a gazillion dollars out of an account just for helping get the money to the US, a new job I don’t need, I could retire today. I’m on Yahoo cause I am in a couple of their groups (socknitters, ample knits). My junk mail folder has thousand of messages and I just dumped it all a couple of days ago. I never open or check these emails, just mark 'em as spam.

If I didn’t like the groups, I would definitely ditch the Yahoo account.

On my hotmail account, I always try to identify and dump junk/span and it all used to go into my junk mail folder, but suddenly it’s as if they know and all that junk is finding its way to my regular mail.

My DD uses g-mail and says it’s better, but I doubt it.

They say that persistence conquers all, but the spammers are getting the best of me.

11

It IS better. I’ve had it for about a year now and I’ve only had a handful of spam emails get through. 99% of them go into the spam folder. I will say that I get less overall than in yahoo, but that may be partly due to the fact that I have had yahoo longer.

12

I use Netscape mail thru my ISP for my general mail…from family, close friends, and household business. It allows me to define filters and instruct mail that contains certain words or addresses or senders and instruct these messages to be sent to my trash. The most helpful filter is the Date filter which I change everyday so that anything that is not the current date goes into the trash which I check for messages that I do want before emptying. I think it works pretty well.

I use Yahoo mail for everything else. Even this isn’t so bad anymore, but not as quite good as my ISP and Netscape. Yahoo limits how many filters you can use. The filters for the Netscape mail seem limitless.

13

There might be a bit of Google-Fangirling ahead…

Gmail.

Yes, it is by invite only to make an account, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find someone with an account to send an invite your way (I’d be happy to). It is really simple. Not only does Gmail not sell your address to… well everyone, I’ve never known anyone to get uncalled for spam with a Gmail account.

But it IS possible to get spam on a gmail account. This just happened to my mum. She made a secondary account (as per my advice), and upon registering at some website, has been flooded with crazy Russian Viagria emails.

She did delete that account because it wasn’t used for anything important, but you can adjust your settings, so emails with certain words in them, or from certain people (or NOT from certain people!) bypass your inbox, and go to the Spam folder, to either be moved by you, or deleted automatically after thirty days.

I can’t speak from experience, because I only have a yahoo-email address to access their TV listing feature (now I want to check how much spam I’ve gotten on that, because I never have checked!), but it got so bad for a friend of mine that she doesn’t even check her email anymore, so it was really hard to get in touch with her!

Plus there are no annoying advertisments all over the page with Gmail, everything is really easy to sort and search through, and you’ve got more space than you could ever use up! I recomend it to everyone. Well worth the (extremely slight) trouble of getting someone to send you a quick invite email.

And like quite a few others have said already; Have two accounts. One really nice thing about gmail is you can set it up so your secondary gmail accound sends a copy of all the emails you get to another account. This way you never have to sign out of your primary account! I’ve got it this way, and have never had any problems with my Gmail.

14

I never ever have problems with spam mail, and I chalk it up to these three reasons:

  1. My mom’s side of the family gets my fake e-mail address, so I avoid feel-good story/lame osama bin laden joke spam

  2. Anything I sign up for online gets my fake e-mail address

  3. I use G-mail

15

If anyone wants a gmail account PM me - I have around 100 invites to give out :stuck_out_tongue:

16

Same strategies - I have 2 email accounts at yahoo - one for my primary mail, one for junk. I use the junk one for all my purchases, downloads, registrations, etc. All the spam goes to that one. My spam folder probably has about 900 messages sitting in it. I don’t bother checking it, b/c the people who matter have my real address. My real address rarely rarely rarely gets spam.