Spam filters rant

[Jake]

True enough. I hope the Old Tools List gives them joy... :lol:

I hear you, it's more the principle of it rather than a need to hide anything for me. I just object to the concept, really. I'd rather pay a few quid and keep a sense of privacy.

But then as I said I refuse to have a supermarket reward card because I don't want anyone knowing what I do and don't buy on that kind of scale. So maybe I'm just a bit of a privacy nut.

 

[Jake]

They'll still be scanning the content of your email though, which is my objection to gmail.

Any good spam filter has to scan the email to decide if its spam or not.

As Roger said, I'd rather that was on my PC and my programme - it is just not the same as allowing Google to read my mail.

 

[Losos]

We had big problems with one ISP so I changed to another one. That was a bit of a pain but we don't get any spam now thank God.

I can't see how a spam filter works (Regardless of where it's located) I noticed that the spammers just keept changing the title line so any filter set to recognise words, or parts of words, will always be one step behind.

It's more important to avoid your e-m address falling into the wrong hands which is mostly down to the ISP isn't it?

 

[RogerS]

We had big problems with one ISP so I changed to another one. That was a bit of a pain but we don't get any spam now thank God.

I can't see how a spam filter works (Regardless of where it's located) I noticed that the spammers just keept changing the title line so any filter set to recognise words, or parts of words, will always be one step behind.

It's more important to avoid your e-m address falling into the wrong hands which is mostly down to the ISP isn't it?

Not quite...spambots trawl forums (fora?) such as this harvesting email addresses. Also unscrupulous mail order firms can sell your email address. Then, of course, there are all those security alert emails from all those finance companies (that you've never had an account with!) asking you to reconfirm all your personal details!!

 

[-David-]

Like mailee I use Outlook Express plus a handfull of preventive programmes, so no spam and no snooping.

If the infamous work V****A is in the subject line then you can set OE to delete it there and then or send it to the bin for you to delete later. Go to Tools/Message Rules/Mail and then read the instructions of how to configure filters to prevent unwanted spam.

It could be that your ISP also has configurable filters, I know mine has.

You need strength in depth - what I use is

my ISP spam filters and firewall
Norton filters and firewall
My modem router is a hardware firewall
I use Adaware & Adwatch
SpyBlaster
Google and Microsoft IE for Popups
WinTasks to keep an eye on my system
Also download IE security updates from Microsoft

They all seem to work well together but sometimes I need to allow popups for certain programmes to work.

Seems like overkill but better safe than sorry.


David

 

[Losos]

David, what I obseved was the the spelling of the infamous V****A word would slightly change over time, so if you set a filter on OE you'd surely have to keep updating it.

Mind you with all you've got installed you should be covered.

Roger I bow to your greater knowledge on 'puter things. All in all I think I might need to get some more s'ware on my machine. I'm always pretty careful about where I give my e-mail address.

 

[-David-]

Yes, it's difficult these days not to give your e-address to various people that you are doing legitimate business with - one can only trust that they abide by their 'Privacy' policies -if we bother to read them ( I know I don't).
There are plenty of solutions to spam these days, so nobody should really have to put up with too much of it.

David

 

[RogerS]

I leave a copy of my emails on the server and so this allows me to download emails to both a laptop (PC) running SpamBayes/Outlook and also to my Mac running Mail/SpamSieve.

So the same emails and spam go to both. Interesting to compare the two spam filters...SpamSieve just has the edge but both are pretty good and use fuzzy logic (I think) to do the filtering and also continually learn and refine as spam goes through them.