Spam Is Killing Me!

[Carbo]

I have a business website that has been up and running for about four years now. Spam is a fact of life but fortunately has usually been a minor nuisance. Lately, though, for the past week and a half or so, the volume of it to my various domain based emails has increased 20X. Now it has becoming annoying as hell, to say the least.
I first checked with my domain host, HostPC. They run Spam Assassin. My settings weren't changed and they claim nothing has changed on their end. The only thing they could tell me was that the spammers have become very good at getting around Spam Assassin and other similar programs.
For the love of God, does anyone have any solutions to make spam at least manageable?? Thanks.

 

[mechBgon]

I've seen Outlook's built-in Spam filtering get top ratings from Consumer Reports in times past. If you don't have Outlook, you might get a free trial download of Microsoft Office and try Outlook to see if its Spam filtration is any improvement. In Outlook, you can configure the Spam filter in Tools > Options > Preferences tab > Junk E-mail button.

 

[Carbo]

I'm using Outlook Express 6. Does it have the same filtering abilities?

 

[FoBoT]

i finally gave up and now forward my domains to gmail. gmail is the only thing that filters most of it out

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Carbo
I'm using Outlook Express 6. Does it have the same filtering abilities?

No

 

[cessation]

Originally posted by: Carbo

I first checked with my domain host, HostPC. They run Spam Assassin. My settings weren't changed and they claim nothing has changed on their end. The only thing they could tell me was that the spammers have become very good at getting around Spam Assassin and other similar programs.

They should've told you to train SpamAssassin. You can read about training it here http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/BayesInSpamAssassin

Without training it I doubt it's going to work that well. You should also read up on the spam scoring chart, you may want to increase/lower it.

 

[Carbo]

Originally posted by: cessation

Originally posted by: Carbo

I first checked with my domain host, HostPC. They run Spam Assassin. My settings weren't changed and they claim nothing has changed on their end. The only thing they could tell me was that the spammers have become very good at getting around Spam Assassin and other similar programs.

They should've told you to train SpamAssassin. You can read about training it here http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/BayesInSpamAssassin

Without training it I doubt it's going to work that well. You should also read up on the spam scoring chart, you may want to increase/lower it.

Interesting article, cessation. But for those of us who aren't high tech oriented, not a lot of practical advice I can put to use.

 

[Blazer]

Originally posted by: mechBgon

Originally posted by: Carbo
I'm using Outlook Express 6. Does it have the same filtering abilities?

No

mechbgon: so you are saying the MS Office Outlook is a better Mail managing over Outlook Express?, i have not used outlook but have used outlook express, would MS Office 2003 be better?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: blazer

Originally posted by: mechBgon

Originally posted by: Carbo
I'm using Outlook Express 6. Does it have the same filtering abilities?

No

mechbgon: so you are saying the MS Office Outlook is a better Mail managing over Outlook Express?, i have not used outlook but have used outlook express, would MS Office 2003 be better?

I remember Outlook 2003's Spam-filtering capabilities earning it a top rating in Consumer Reports' testing, compared to dedicated anti-Spam software. And unlike dedicated anti-Spam software, you don't have to buy it again every year. Time has passed since that review, so I'd suggest that people who get lots of Spam should use the free trial software to determine if Office (preferably Office 2007) is worth it for their needs.

As a side note, I believe Windows Mail on Vista uses the same Spam filtering as Outlook 2007 itself, unlike Outlook Express on previous versions of Windows. So if you need an excuse to get Vista, well there's one to add to your list

 

[Blazer]

Originally posted by: mechBgon

Originally posted by: blazer

Originally posted by: mechBgon

Originally posted by: Carbo
I'm using Outlook Express 6. Does it have the same filtering abilities?

No

mechbgon: so you are saying the MS Office Outlook is a better Mail managing over Outlook Express?, i have not used outlook but have used outlook express, would MS Office 2003 be better?

So if you need an excuse to get Vista, well there's one to add to your list

no "Vista" for me anywhere in the near futher, my $'s feel better in my pocket and dont even register in MS pockets!!!!!!!!!, and the cost for vista will have to come waaaaaaaaaaay down before i consider it, and hope that then it will not be such a resource hog, heck coupled with a full Norton internet security suite you could lock up a modern PC that only had 1 gb of ram.

 

[Spacehead]

If you're looking for an antispam program, i've been using K9 for several years & it works great. Easy to setup & use, works with OE & it's free.
99.77% effective in the last 1,083 days

I've also resorted to setting up rules on the web interface for my mail. Being on dial up, anything i can stop from being downloaded in OE is worth it to me, seeing that 71% of my mail is spam. That might not be so i your case.

 

[mcveigh]

K9 rocks mine is 99+% as well

and it's free!