SPAM Problem

gt568

After years of never getting any, suddenly I'm getting loads to my email address (10+) a day. I've tried blocking the senders, but they keep coming from different senders. I use IE7 and out look express 6. I'm not really sure why this has started happening so suddenly, as I usually really strict about giving out my address. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks

backflip

Only use a hotmail or yahoo address on the net. That will attract all the spam. Never give out your personal address (pop3) on the net. Use something web based like gmail instead of pop3.
I use Pop Peeper (www.poppeeper.com) which checks all my servers and lets me know when mail arrives. I can then see what is on the server and delete all the junk and download only what i want.
This morning I had 23 spam emails in various accounts that pop peeper notified me about and i deleted them before they got anywhere near my system. I know it is heresay on this board to suggest anything other than Mailwasher, but believe me, mailwasher has been superceded many times by several programmes which all do a far better job, pop peeper being only one of them.

gt568

So there's nothing I can do to stop it now, apart from downloading a program?

backflip

Not a thing, apart from changing your email address and never giving it out on the net or to anyone you don't know, and use a hotmail address purely for internet purposes. That will cut down very considerably, but nothing can cut it out entirely. You can employ email clients such as thunderbird and filter the spam out, but it isn't stopping it, only helping to prevent it being opened. I personally don't want the stuff on my system, filtered out or not, and that is why I use a mail notification programme, pop peeper in my case to get rid of it before it gets near my computer.

IoweIoweitsofftoworkIgo

I don't understand how I appear to get loads on the stuff, but, some of it hasn't even got my correct e-mail address on it, very close, but not exact. How does it get to my inbox?

cwoodham

backflip wrote:

I use Pop Peeper (www.poppeeper.com) which checks all my servers and lets me know when mail arrives. I can then see what is on the server and delete all the junk and download only what i want.

I know it is heresay on this board to suggest anything other than Mailwasher, but believe me, mailwasher has been superceded many times by several programmes which all do a far better job, pop peeper being only one of them.

That's a little unfair. I use the last freeware version of Mailwasher (version 1.33) and it does everything you list above - as you say 'checks all my servers and lets me know when mail arrives. I can then see what is on the server and delete all the junk and download only what i want'. I can also apply filters to tag emails which aren't directly addressed to me and delete them straight away on the server.

How do these programs 'do a far better job'? Mailwasher does everything I need and I'm quite happy with it.

By all means suggest your program but dont knock others when they are equally as effective.

backflip

cwoodham wrote:

That's a little unfair. I use the last freeware version of Mailwasher (version 1.33) and it does everything you list above - as you say 'checks all my servers and lets me know when mail arrives. I can then see what is on the server and delete all the junk and download only what i want'. I can also apply filters to tag emails which aren't directly addressed to me and delete them straight away on the server.

How do these programs 'do a far better job'? Mailwasher does everything I need and I'm quite happy with it.

By all means suggest your program but dont knock others when they are equally as effective.

I'm sorry if I was being unfair. I believe Pop Peeper (incidently not 'my' programme, I've no loyalty to any and change them when I find or I'm told about something better) is better because I check three hotmail accounts, four pop3 accounts, two yahoo accounts and one operamail. If I wanted I could use it for gmail, I believe there is a plugin available for that. I can programme each check of each account (10) to check at different time intervals and to give each of the ten a unique sound so that I know without looking which account has new mail. Some automatically check every three minutes while others only every three hours.
With the free version of mailwasher I believe (from memory) that you can only check one account. I can check any number at any time interval I chose and be notified by individual sounds.
I trust that helps, and again I apologise if I came across as snippy.

cwoodham

backflip wrote:

.
With the free version of mailwasher I believe (from memory) that you can only check one account.

Not true. With the last freeware version (1.33) you can check a number of accounts. I have it checking five.

I just felt that when someone takes a snipe at good free software I had to put the record straight.

backflip

I don't want to contradict you but according to the Mailwasher site the FREE version only checks one account and only pop3. That is exactly why I said it wasn't as good as many other notifiers. I stand by that, I've used it in the past and I'm aware of its limitations. If you can get the free version to check hotmail, yahoo, operamail and any number of pop3 accounts, then I'll doff my cap to you, because I could only get it to check one pop3 account.

Q. How many accounts may I have? A. This version of Mailwasher only supports one account. If you wish to have multiple accounts, then upgrade to MailWasher Pro at http://www.firetrust.com.

http://www.mailwasher.net/faq.php#_Q._Total_accounts

Actually I don't understand your post, the latest free version is 5.1 not 1.33.
Edit.
OK, 1.33 is the (confusingly) last free version and does indeed check multiple pop3 accounts, although the latest free version is 5.1 and is limited to one account.
I was wrong about the multiple accounts and you were correct. I apologise. However, and without trying to claw something back, Mailwasher remains limited in what it can do compared with many other similar programmes in regard to webmail accounts and individual timing of accounts. Could your version check the accounts I detailed in my earlier post?

cwoodham

backflip wrote:

However, and without trying to claw something back, Mailwasher remains limited in what it can do compared with many other similar programmes in regard to webmail accounts and individual timing of accounts. Could your version check the accounts I detailed in my earlier post?

You may be right on this. I dont know as I dont have webmail accounts. All I know is that if you have the POP3 and SMTP server addresses you could do it. Perhaps someone else has experience of this.

But for me it does everything I need.

alanclose

gt568 wrote:

After years of never getting any, suddenly I'm getting loads to my email address (10+) a day. I've tried blocking the senders, but they keep coming from different senders. I use IE7 and out look express 6. I'm not really sure why this has started happening so suddenly, as I usually really strict about giving out my address. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks

Have you thought of setting up message rules in OE6, depending on the type of spam you are getting quite often a simple message rule deleting all e-mails with certain words can greatly cut down the amount of spam you get. As you say blocking senders doesn't really work but once you set up a message rule it doesn't matter where the e-mail comes from, if it contains a word you've added to the list, like Viagra then you never get to see it