As a web host and dialup provider with 80 customers, I get a lot of calls and E-Mails asking if something can be done about the flood of SPAM. The short answer is - the mail server can only identify possible spam and mark it as such. It is really up to the individual to find a way to personally attack the problem for theirselves.
I, too, get bombarded with the same types of unwanted messages that you do, but probably to a greater degree. I have 7 E-Mail accounts so you might imagine the problem I encounter on a daily basis.
There are two ways to try to combat this problem: purchase an anti-spam program, and setup rules in Outlook or Outlook Express to auto delete known spam. Let's discuss the programs available.
A program called SpamNet is available at http://www.cloudmark.com/. This program is free and does a great job of learning known spammers and allows you to identify new ones and thus add them to the database. Rather than mention others, let me just say that I would rather stop the spam from ever reaching my Inbox and these programs don't accomplish that. Even using the SpamNet program, I still had some viruses attack my computer (luckily I am up to date with Norton anti-virus and no harm was done). So, what type of program prevents spam from ever reaching your computer?
I purchased a program several years ago called MailWasher (available at www.mailwasher.net or www.firetrust.com) I keep coming back to this program to minimize the amount of unwanted E-Mail that invades my computer. The way it works is: when connected to the internet, the program downloads the message headers from the server and attempts to categorize them for you. You can set up a friend's list, a blacklist and rules to automatically identify the messages that you don't want. I have Outlook setup so it doesn't download E-Mails until I manually click the Send and Receive button. I do this because I want to 'wash' the mails before they download to my system. It is rare that any unwanted mail actually gets through, and I haven't had one infected message since I went back to using this program. I highly recommend it!
The second way to eliminate spam is to setup Rules in your E-Mail program. This doesn't eliminate spam, but can automatically delete it or move it to the designated folder of your choice. The Rules are mainly for categorizing incoming messages as either 'Work," "Home", or any other category you wish to setup. The Rule can also auto delete a message, but be careful with this one.
To summarize, unwanted messages are currently a big pain, but there are things we can do. Purchasing a program like SpamNet can report known spammers to the large and growing database, and possibly someday laws will be in effect to deal with these mental midgets. But after years of watching the problem grow, I recommend a program that only downloads the message headers (but still allows you to see who it is from and a brief look at each message text), and then receive the remaining messages once you are sure it is safe to do so.
At The Hobby Line! Internet, I am always looking for the perfect program that will stop spam at it's source - my mail server. Perhaps someday that program will come along. But for now, it's MailWasher and Outlook.
Mike Dippel
The Hobby Line! Internet
http://hobbyline.com
(954) 895-INET (4638)
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