Spamalot!

[freckles]

I have been getting so much spam lately, that I have been looking into downloading one of the free programs.

Both Spamfighter and Mailwasher have been recommended to me.

So,
a) are these completely safe to use?
b) will they actually help?
c) does anyone recommend one over the other?
d) any potential problems I should be aware of - will my legitimate email be OK, for example?

I don't really want to pay out and so am only looking at the free versions. Also, I'm not terribly technical, so it needs to be easy to use!

[Stu]

One of the first things to do is contact to your ISP tech support, they should be blocking spam at their end. They won't be able to block it all but the most obvious ones should be.

You may already have anti spam filters that your ISP provides but are either not activated or not setup.

If you are using outlook you can also setup rules that will auto delete emails with certain words in them.

When you use anti spam software there is always the risk of deleting genuine emails but you can fine tune them.

Google will give you various free anti spam programs
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=free+anti+spam+software&meta=

[freckles]

Thanks, Stu.

I don't know why it has suddenly got worse, but for the last few weeks it has been terrible.

I do try setting up rules, and always block the senders, but although this may be cutting it down a bit, such a lot is still coming through. And it takes so long to go through it all each day!

All my security setting have been increased too.

[Stu]

The problem is, once your email address is on a spam list the amount of spam you receive gradually increases.

I would deffinately contact your ISP.

You can also try things like MailWasher and the other free anti spam software.

It may be the only real solution is to change your email address, then be very careful where you use the email address.

maybe have one email address that you only use for personal friends, family and banks etc then another that you use for online shopping, websites etc.

[Orlandobelle]

I've used mailwasher for years - it can still be time consuming 'sorting' through it though.

My spam count is up to approx 400 emails per day now :( Freeserve/orange are not interested at all!

I've now set up a new googlemail account and have changed most of my real mail to this account with a view to stopping using my freeserve addresses

it's ridiculous the amount of junk I still get - and as for the subject matter ..... :angry:

[Octal]

If you are using programs like Mailwasher then whatever you do don't bounce the email, it will just confirm your email address, just delete them.

[freckles]

I've used mailwasher for years - it can still be time consuming 'sorting' through it though.

My spam count is up to approx 400 emails per day now :( Freeserve/orange are not interested at all!

I've now set up a new googlemail account and have changed most of my real mail to this account with a view to stopping using my freeserve addresses

it's ridiculous the amount of junk I still get - and as for the subject matter ..... :angry:

Probably no real advantage then, if I'll still have to sort through everything.

I'm using Outlook Express - is that who I shouuld contact, or Orange? (if the latter, forget it, I just know how helpful they are going to be!!)

Wish I knew who I'd given my address to to trigger it all though.

[Jan]

I have two email accounts with Virgin. I use the secondary email address for everything and the main one for nothing. I have started getting a bit of spam filtering through on the one I don't use.