spam email

[qwertyman]

has anyone got any good tips for preventing spam email?

 

[stlcardinals]

has anyone got any good tips for preventing spam email?

The only true thing you can do to not receive any spam is to not have an email account.

If you have a web based email account (gmail, hotmail, etc), learn how to mark emails as spam. Each web based client is different.

If it is a corporate account, that is a little bit different. Usually an off-site third party is best for scrubbing spam (MXLogic, Postini, Barracuda).

 

[qwertyman]

what do you use personally?

could it be good to have two different email services?

 

[Binky]

Best way to avoid spam is to never ever ever use that email address for anything. Use a spam account for all signups, etc. Problem is...then you have two (or more) email accounts to check for real emails.

For free, Gmail is pretty good at filtering spam. You could "filter" your email through gmail by having it check your existing email account(s), and then access that email through either POP/IMAP or the Gmail web page.

I have Gmail pull email from multiple POP/IMAP accounts and then sort them into separate folders with labels. Since its very good at filtering spam, all that is usually left in those folders is advertising emails from legitimite retailers where I used that email address. I only need to go through these every few days or weeks. The primary gmail inbox is where the real stuff ends up.

Edit: I use mail.com for the secondary/spam emails. They offer all kinds of wacky email addresses for free, and they allow IMAP connections (AOL's email system) so Gmail can just grab it from there directly.

 

[lxskllr]

I use 3 different email accounts. Yahoo is my complete BS account. I use that for signup things I don't care a bit about. I get lots of spam there. My Gmail account I use for stuff I care about, but not terribly important. I use that for reputable forums, and web shops. I never get spam there. I use my isp email for my most important stuff, bills, and personal mail. I never get spam on that account.

When I say I never get spam, you should read that as spam doesn't get through to me. The filters put it all in the appropriate place.

 

[qwertyman]

so its definitely better to have more than one account then...that would make a lot of sense.

i posted on a couple of other forums and they've mentioned similar things while also recommending false email services for a second account (mailinator.com, cleanzer.com to name a few). are these worth getting?

 

[lxskllr]

For real quick stuff you won't need for more than a few minutes, 10 minute mail works good...

http://10minutemail.com/10MinuteMail/index.html

You'd use something like this to vote in contests, or for a completely disposable address. You get the email account for 10 minutes, and you can respond to mail from it for that period of time. The time can be extended by another 10 minutes also if you need to do that.

 

[qwertyman]

thats quite cool, very similar to mailinator which you get for half an hour i think.

cleanzer you get forever though. that can be more helpful sometimes