email software, which, how

[a4gom]

Probably not a quick one but here goes.

I am getting loads of sh1te emails at the moment, its got to a point where I want to do something about it.

I have been pretty careful where I have left my email address on the web to try protect this and always use my works email when making purchases etc. Unfortunatley its one of those email addresses where you can put anything you like in front of the @ mark and this is one of the problems, the spam stuff is never sent to the same address.

I have heard and I think read on here about spam filters etc in outlook? and other email programs also about additional software.

Whats the best?

I did try swap back over to outlook at the weekend. At the moment my email is dealt with by incredimail, some kind person installed this for me and it seemed like a good idea at the time but I have no idea how to export my address book and messages out of it.

If anyone has any ideas?

What about the email stuff which mozilla offer? any good?

TIA for any advice

[mr-rad]

Andy Outlook rules wizzard is your freind. By setting up a few rules you should be able to cut down your spam.

You can access the rules wizzard from tools.

This may not go far enough but it's a start.

Sorry Just re read your post and cant help with transfering settings as i'm not familier with your email proggy.

[a4gom]

Cheers Conrad

[DMMS]

This provides instructions on how to export your contacts from IncrediMail to Outllook Express.  Obviously, the import side of it will be a bit different if you are using the full Outlook.

Here is some stuff about spam filtering in Outlook.  Ideally, you want at least a two-tier filtering process such as a dedicated spam filter and then the Outlook filter.

[a4gom]

Thanks DMMS that looks like just the job.

[gee_fin]

There are two methods to spam. The first and most effective is stopping it at the server. Various methods available for this, through lists, greylisting, blacklisting, checksum, MAPS, RBLs, Bayesian filtering and more. But essentially, the lion's share can be (and in my opinion *should* be) done here.

The second step is to install a filter on your email program, the main known ones being the items from Norton and similar. They will require teaching of spam/ham but will be a good secondary step. The annoyance being you have to download the spam to your computer in the first step.

I would certainly suggest turning off an anything@ email address, it'll be spammed to high heaven as soon as the domain is picked up on the radar. Depending who you're hosting with/how you're hosting will give you the server options you have.

After about six months of actively trying to get on top of my spam, I've gone from ~400/day in my inbox at peak to now receiving ~4/week if I'm (un)lucky!

For the server admin nerds, checkout Atomic Rocket Turtle for spam protection, their package was an absolute godsend (PyZor, Razor, Spam Assasin, greylisting, ClamAv, MAPS).

Cheers,

Graeme.

[ChrisG]

SpamBayes is a good free Outlook plugin for bayesian filtering. I also own a couple of domain names that I use for e-mail so that I can use anything@mydomain.co.uk as an address to get routed to one POP3 box.

It does has its advantages over a single address but the downside is like you mention, the amount of spam mail sent to random addresses on the domain, I can get ~60-80 spam messages per day sometimes (thats not including messages filtered out by the server side POP3 filtering at the ISP).

Now its set up and ive taught it what is/isnt spam, SpamBayes correctly bins virtually all of them and Ive only had one false positive where it classed a genuine email as possible spam.

[gee_fin]

Yep, SpamBayes is a client side Bayesian filter ala what Spam Assassin does on the server itself.  

[Asterix]

changing your service provider to one where you have to setup the mailboxes (the @ prefixxes) will vastly reduce your spam. You can setup as many as you like.

I've gone from over 200 spams per day down to around 10 spams per day on my specific prefixxes.

Same route as the web hosting, went to heartinternet via my m8's service...www.testingplus.co.uk...he's currently revamping the site (e.g. he *does* do .com transfer, despite what it says).

hth

[a4gom]

Thanks graeme and chris i'll download load that plug in an give it a try.

Cheers Peter, this is for another account to the domain stuff, this is my home broadband and phone account.

I probably get 20+ a day, its not the end of the day but if I can remove a few it will help.

I've succesfully managed to convert back to outlook now so here goes.

[a4gom]

Doh!

Further to the above anyone know of an easy way to delete duplicate messages?

It would appear i've managed to copy all my messages into outlook more than once.

   

[gee_fin]

Delete the lot and reimport?

[a4gom]