How do I prevent spam?

[taurus77]

I keep getting spam messages daily about Viagra and sending them to my spam folder. But they keep coming back; is there any way I can prevent getting these messages?

 

[natalie_ca]

Nope. Once they have your address, you're doomed.

Bouncing the emails using a program like Mailwasher, will only let those senders know that they have hit a valid email that gives them activity.

Replying to them does the same thing.

All you can do is just simply delete the emails. Eventually it will get so bad that you have to change your address.

For the record, always have a "spam" email address that you can use for sites that require you to enter an email address to register. I use my very first hotmail address and it gets loads and loads of that kind of spam, so I don't care whether it gets more, so that's why I use it for that purpose.

 

[carolpetunia]

Since I started using Gmail (Google's free web-based email), I hardly ever see spam -- it almost always goes automatically into a spam folder. And when a piece of spam does slip through, I make one click to report it and Google shuts the spammer down.

I love Gmail -- it's simple to use, messages are threaded in a convenient and logical way, there's plenty of storage space, and I can check email from anywhere. You might give it a try!

 

[rapunzel47]

You will probably never eliminate all spam. Once your email address is out there, it's impossible to control who gets hold of it. Spam filters on your email client and those offered by your ISP will help -- sometimes a lot. Some things you CAN do, though...

. Never reply to spam, even to use the offered "unsubscribe" link -- all that does is confirm that your email address is valid;

. Never put your unprotected email address ([email protected]) where bots can harvest it. It won't be long before there's spam going to that address I just put there, because the bots will recognize it as an email address -- good thing it's not real. If you must put an email address where bots can harvest -- or might be able to -- cloak it, for instance by showing it as "janedoe (at) serviceprovider (dot) com", which is perfectly intelligible to the person(s) you want to use it, but not to bots;

. Use a throw-away address (any of the free services) for any situation where you don't know how it will be treated, and if you start getting spam on it, dump it and get another throw-away.

Just some thoughts...

 

[capt_jordi]

Originally Posted by CarolPetunia

Since I started using Gmail (Google's free web-based email), I hardly ever see spam -- it almost always goes automatically into a spam folder. And when a piece of spam does slip through, I make one click to report it and Google shuts the spammer down.

I love Gmail -- it's simple to use, messages are threaded in a convenient and logical way, there's plenty of storage space, and I can check email from anywhere. You might give it a try!

I second this. They also have a way to move all of your addresses and everything. I never get spam in my inbox it all just goes to the spam folder and then you can just clear that folder. Also you can add emails to your spam list so they will go there. Its great.

 

[icklemiss21]

Another gmail fan

Can you set a rule to add words to a spam filter?

 

[persi & alley]

Originally Posted by CarolPetunia

Since I started using Gmail (Google's free web-based email), I hardly ever see spam -- it almost always goes automatically into a spam folder. And when a piece of spam does slip through, I make one click to report it and Google shuts the spammer down.

I love Gmail -- it's simple to use, messages are threaded in a convenient and logical way, there's plenty of storage space, and I can check email from anywhere. You might give it a try!

This sounds too good to be true and brings up two questions.

1. Changing your email address can be a long and painful experience eventually resulting in lots of valuable email being lost unless google has some kind of forwarding scheme in place. The U.S. postal service only forwards mail for three months. And the problem with forever forwarding of emails is that once you give up your email address it becomes available for somebody else to use after a while meaning you will get all their email in the future. Please tell me google has this problem addressed.

2. AOL has a spam folder but all kinds of legal email ends up in this folder so I end up having to look in the spam folder all the time so I am not really solving anything. Being told that I can identify something as spam and never receive from that person again sounds wonderful, something I thought was going to happen with AOL when I would click on the TREAT THIS AS SPAM button. However, I continue to get that same email every day. It reminds me of when I was waiting at a crosswalk, continually pushing on the button to cross. Finally the button came off (probably due to frustration pushing) but I found the button wired to nothing.

 

[icklemiss21]

You can forward mail to your gmail account, I forward my work email to gmail so I can check it on days I am not in the office. However, when I switched to gmail from my ISP email as my main account, I emailed everyone asking them to change my email address - if I didn't email them I figured that I wasn't that bothered about them not having my email address.

Any forums etc I now put on one email account, I have a personal email account and a gmail for work forwards and use my old ISP and an old hotmail account as spam accounts, therefore when i empty any spam into the recycle bin from them, i can check to see if anyone has sent me an email to them that should have my personal gmail.

Treating something as spam will only send it to a spam folder because the email provider is not in the position to decide it for you. You should always check your spam folder for 'real' emails.

 

[fastnoc]

Originally Posted by Natalie_ca

Nope. Once they have your address, you're doomed.

Bouncing the emails using a program like Mailwasher, will only let those senders know that they have hit a valid email that gives them activity.

Replying to them does the same thing.

All you can do is just simply delete the emails. Eventually it will get so bad that you have to change your address.

For the record, always have a "spam" email address that you can use for sites that require you to enter an email address to register. I use my very first hotmail address and it gets loads and loads of that kind of spam, so I don't care whether it gets more, so that's why I use it for that purpose.

This is untrue. You don't need to change email addresses. ALl that needs to be done is to learn to manage your email. bouncing around from address to address isn't going to get you anywhere.

The best way to do this is the email server. The company you're paying to do your email hosting. It sounds like they arne't filtering anything. most likely you have the option to add/edit filters for your mail. but you'll need to contact your email provider.

next, as mentinoed, the google gmail option is the best free option I've ever seen. I run my own mail servers, and I have still moved my domains to google. you can still use your custom domains and switch the mail service to gmail. I would venture to say I get 4 spams per week with Google. Max. I look at my spam folder in gmail though and I'm really getting over 700 spam messages per day. That's how good gmail is.

It's free, and you can use their gmail interface, or any mail program like outlook too. Nobody will know you're using gmail unless they peer at the headers of the email.

There is one caveat here. And it's a BIG one. If you use gmail, you are giving them permission to track, archive and utilize every single word of every single email you send or recieve. Now, truth be told it won't make any difference. They arne't publishing people's emails or anything. But they are tracking things and you can bet the reason is to get better demographics on online shopping habits.

I have my domains pointed to gmail and wouldn't even consider moving them back.

Originally Posted by Persi & Alley

This sounds too good to be true and brings up two questions.

1. Changing your email address can be a long and painful experience eventually resulting in lots of valuable email being lost unless google has some kind of forwarding scheme in place. The U.S. postal service only forwards mail for three months. And the problem with forever forwarding of emails is that once you give up your email address it becomes available for somebody else to use after a while meaning you will get all their email in the future. Please tell me google has this problem addressed.

2. AOL has a spam folder but all kinds of legal email ends up in this folder so I end up having to look in the spam folder all the time so I am not really solving anything. Being told that I can identify something as spam and never receive from that person again sounds wonderful, something I thought was going to happen with AOL when I would click on the TREAT THIS AS SPAM button. However, I continue to get that same email every day. It reminds me of when I was waiting at a crosswalk, continually pushing on the button to cross. Finally the button came off (probably due to frustration pushing) but I found the button wired to nothing.

You aren't understanding everything here. Let me explain. It's not as hard as it looks.

if you have an email address. like [email protected] and you registered the mydomain.com you can simply move the email handling to gmail and you won't change your address at all. Gmail picks up the email and starts managing it automatically. it takes about a day for the DNS to recognize the change globally. These are actually called 'mx' records which basically tell the internet where to direct email for that domain.

Next, i use to check my spam folder all the time too like you're mentioning in AOL. Google is FAR better than you think at this. I don't remember the last time a real email got stuck in a spam folder. it's THAT good.

One thing to remember, gmail doesn't shut down any spammers when you report them. it simply adds that address as a POSSIBLE spammer and if enough reports come in adds it to it's filters. they don't shut anyone down, they just manage the email. and they sometimes ban entire domains based on spam reports.

Now, if you currently have an AOL email address, just go to the aol mail control panel and redirect all your email to whatever new gmail address you get (this is assuming you aren't using your own domain). Then aol will permanently redirect mail to your gmail account, and you'll still be getting the awesome gmail spam control.

 

[herbalheidi]

Some email programs let you put all emails with a certain word in them in the spam folder. You can set this up in outlook if you use it. Just use the words "viagra" and "penis" then you never have to see it again.

Also, you can block specific email address from emailing you, so if you notice its the same company sending you spam block them.