4 replies to this topic

[super_neil]

I get a wild amount of spam emails coming through my outlook every day, its doing my head in! Mainly I use my computer for work and I am getting these from various different sources. My ISP reccomended Spam Fighter, it worked for about 2 days and now I am getting the same rubbish every day. I just ran an Ad-Aware scan and I also run AVG. Any thoughts?

[Doug]

I ran the free-trial of SpamFighter on a recommendation that I read here at TC. I'm now sorry that I did.
I noticed no beneficial difference over my prior plan of using Outlook "Rules" plus MailWasher.

Now that the SpamFighter free-trial has expired, it pops-up the expected alerts that it has expired and invites me to purchase it -- very annoying. So I "uninstalled" it. Yeah, right. Not that easy.
I've had a terrible time trying to get SpamFighter off my machine.

I will continue to use Outlook "rules" to sort my email, AND I always use MailWasher BEFORE allowing any email to even touch my Outlook. Mailwasher also comes in a (free) and (paid) version. I've been using the (free) version for about 6 months and am very satisfied with its continued free service.

The graphical interface for MailWasher allows the user to view the list of emails as they arrive and make decisions based on Mailwasher's own "original blacklist"/"possibly spam"/"probably spam" assessment as well as the owner/users own decisions to place addresses in the "blacklist" or in the "friends list". So the owner/user can strip out all the blacklisted addressed email with a simple delete function and only allow known/accepted friend email to arrive into the Outlook Client.
http://www.mailwasher.net/download.php

[hammer51]

I myself use two general rules that filter spam from my mail

One rule which usually contains part of the senders address (usually just the second part) which I want to block and another for certain trigger words, etc; words such as viagra, loans, mortgages. Just these two rules have been effective for me without the need for other external programs. Also I have 2 seperate mail accounts, one for general web browisng and form filling which is disposable - I usually drop the general web account after two or three months and create a new one, The other account is strictly for freinds and relatives and other certain trusted people only.

If you do go for setting up rules just remember to think out on how you would block the senders addresses, if you had spam from an address for instance say mike@qwerty.com I would not block the whole address for the simple reason that the spammer would simply change the first part before the @ symbol to another random name ie: billy@qwerty.com. Therefor to successfully block it I would just block the word qwerty in the address.

One word of warning about blocking this way.... Do be wary of what you block, take for instance abcdefg@ntlworld.com if you say blocked the word ntlworld in the senders address, then you would not recieve mail from anyone using ntl accounts. this would add up to about a couple of million legit people in the uk ! On the other hand lets take raimondoy@passeyadvertising.com by blocking just the word passeyadvertising I certainly wouldnt loose much sleep over it.....

[super_neil]

Hi, and thanks for the advice guys! So how do I set these rules out in outlook express? //dumbass

[hammer51]

Howdy super_neil - This is how to set a basic rule up, may seem long winded at first but once you get the hang of it, its like riding a bike!

First of all open up Outlook Express so it is running
From the tools menu select -> message rules -> mail...
If you do not have any current rules you will be looking at the new mail rule screen
In the top window -> Place a check in the box -> Where the from line cotains people
In the second window check the box -> Move it to the specified folder
You should now see that in the bottom window the options that you have chosen above
Now in the bottom window click on where it says contains people
A requester should now open, type in the address (or in our case part of the address) you wish to block and select add then select ok
Now click on the move to specified folder and select where you want the mail to go
You can set it straight to delete but you may want to create a directory called spam so you can just quickly check emails before finally deleting.
Now at the bottom where it says Name of the rule call it something like "Blocked senders list".
Now click apply now on the first window, then apply now again on the second window too and this rule should apply itself to the current inbox, once it has done you will get an OK requester flash up on the screen. Confirm this and then click the close button

You should have a new mail rule now created. To add more addresses to the list - open up the mail rules once again and highlight the rule you want to add information to. In this case you should be able to see the list of blocked senders you have added, simply click on any of the blocked senders names and the box will appear where you can add more senders to the list. Once done use the apply twice as above to run it in the current inbox

To add another rule for block words simply create a new rule and mirror the above but in the top window check the option which says where the subject lines contains specific words then at the bottom name the rule something along the lines of "Blocked words List"

Hope this is of help to you,
Just beware... as mentioned in the earlier post - be careful on what you block !!