Which anti spam program should I use?

[OM]

Can someone recommend an anti spam program?

I've used Nortons version... it was OK... but I wanted to try some
others.

I've tried two others, the last one being Macfee's version.
Both worked the same way.
You have a second program sitting in between your email program like
Outlook and your email.

Besides not being to able to figure out how the heck to make the
programs work... this approach seemed soooo unintuitive to me.
On top of that, you have to take out time to train the system and give
your email account password.

With Nortons version, the program is integrated into Outlook Express.
You install it and you are ready to go.
If something is classified as Spam and it's not, then you can add it to
your approved list easily, similarly for telling it about email that is
spam.
(Don't know about Outlook... didn't use it with that, assume it would
be the same).

What other recommended anti spam program are there out there?
And are there any open source ones?
I couldn't find any that worked in the same way as Nortons.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.


OM

 

[Ricky]

Here's one to look at..
http://keir.net/k9.html

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Can someone recommend an anti spam program?

I've used Nortons version... it was OK... but I wanted to try some
others.

I've tried two others, the last one being Macfee's version.
Both worked the same way.
You have a second program sitting in between your email program like
Outlook and your email.

Besides not being to able to figure out how the heck to make the
programs work... this approach seemed soooo unintuitive to me.
On top of that, you have to take out time to train the system and give
your email account password.

All "anti-spam" programs would have to work in much the same manner.

With Nortons version, the program is integrated into Outlook Express.
You install it and you are ready to go.
If something is classified as Spam and it's not, then you can add it to
your approved list easily, similarly for telling it about email that is
spam.
(Don't know about Outlook... didn't use it with that, assume it would
be the same).

What other recommended anti spam program are there out there?
And are there any open source ones?
I couldn't find any that worked in the same way as Nortons.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.


OM

While it's not possible to completely eliminate spam (unsolicited
commercial email), there are some precautions and steps you can take to
minimize it's impact:

1) Never, ever post your real email address to publicly accessible
forums or newsgroups, such as this one. For years now, spammers have
been using software utilities to scan such places to harvest email
addresses. It's a simple matter to disguise your posted email address
so that these software "bots" can't obtain anything useful. For
example, insert some obviously bogus characters or words into your reply
address, for example: "(e-mail address removed)."

2) Never, ever reply to any spam you receive, even to "unsubscribe" or
"remove" yourself from the spammers' address lists; you'll only compound
the problem. If spammers had any intention of honoring the your desire
not to receive spam, they wouldn't have become spammers in the first
place. When you reply to a spammer, all you're doing is confirming that
he/she has a valid, marketable email address.

3) Be especially leery of any offers from websites for free software,
services, information, etc, that require your email address, or that
require your email address so you can "login" to access the offered
service and/or information. Many such sites are supplementing their
income by collecting addresses to sell to the spammers. For instance,
subscribing to CNN.COM's Breaking News Service will garner you a lot of
additional spam. (Of course, not all such sites have under-handed
motives; it's a judgment call. If the offer seems "too good to be
true," it's most likely a scam.)

4) DO forward any and all spam, with complete headers, to the
originating ISP with a complaint. Not all ISPs will make an effort to
shut down the spammers, but many will. One tool that makes forwarding
such complaints fairly simple is SpamCop (http://spamcop.net).

4) Another useful tool is MailWasher (http://www.mailwasher.net). This
utility allows you to preview your email before downloading it from the
server. Spammers can even be blacklisted, so that any future emails
from them will be automatically deleted from the server.

5) Within Outlook Express, add any spammers to your Blocked Senders
list, so the their messages are automatically deleted from the server
without being downloaded to your PC.

--

Bruce Chambers

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