SPAM EMAIL

Are you cursed with uninvited SPAM email filling up your inbox. Unfortunately there is no easy remedy to this modern day intrusion but there are steps you can take.

See below for useful programs

First step is to try and avoid it in the first place, SPAMERs use programs that scan web pages and newsgroups for email addresses so if you have your email on a web page or newsgroup somewhere consider using one of the many FREE web based email addresses like HOTMAIL. Then if you get too much junk you can just change it. Only give out your favourite email address to friends and others you trust.

If, like me, you did not cover the first step then remedies must be taken.

Mail Filters - most decent email programs have some sort of email filter (Outlook Express, Netscape and Opera to name three), these consist of user options that enable you scan incoming emails for certain words and then decide what to do with them. eg, you could scan for friends email addresses and send them to a specific folder OR you could scan for certain words like viagra - or swear words, and then send them straight to a delete folder. Be careful though, if you scan for SEX it may also pick up the counties of Essex and Sussex and end up deleting something important.

Spam Programs - There are programs that use what is known as a heuristic method of detection, heuristic means that the program will learn if you teach it. Initially, depending on how the program works, you download your messages and then mark which is good and which is SPAM.

Subsequent downloads will then examine the incoming emails and compare them to the examples that you have given it, it WILL initially make mistakes but you correct these mistakes and the program then becomes more accurate.

None of the above is infalible but with ever growing amounts of spam it is just as easy to make a mistake and manually delete a good email as it is for the automatic programs to delete a good one.
 

Programs that may be of use in the fight against SPAM.
 
Mailwasher This program lists your emails and can delete them BEFORE downloading to your computer, has a good filter as well as a friends and enemy list. It will also make a decent guess at email and mark it accordingly. It does have a facility to BOUNCE suspect email, this is not generally accepted as good protocol as many SPAM emails come from fictitious addresses and will bounce back to you - also, it takes up unnecessary bandwidth, best to just DELETE them.

K9 Easy to instal and use program that I have found to be quite accurate so far, after you give it some emails to compare with it will mark the subject line with the word [Spam], you then use your email client's RULES to move anything with [Spam] in the subject line to a folder of your choice. Best to initially check it in a seperate folder before taking the bull by the horns and deleting it straight off.

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