Spam

[Marc]

I have been a good amount of traveling over the past few weeks, and when I come back home I am just FLOODED with spam.  I've never seen it this bad.

For you experts out there...what should I do?  Is it time to change email addresses?

Yikes!

Marc

[rodroddyfan]

I would change email addresses if the spam is out of control, or get a spam blocker if there is one.  I know I get alot of spam on my email addy.

[Jordan7]

Are you talking about junk mail? I use Yahoo! and I sometimes get 15 or 20 pieces of "Bulk" mail within 2 or 3 hours. I'm constantly deleting it. I don't know what to do also, this never happened to me before.

[Alfonzo]

Fortunately my system has a great "junk mail filter" that takes care of most of that crap. I check through the junk folder twice a week to see if any of my friends list serves got in there by mistake.

[Ton80]

If you're fairly computer literate (and I'm assuming you are), you can switch email clients to Mozilla Thunderbird.  It has a built in junk mail filter that I find to be very effective.  I get 100-120 messages PER DAY.  Thunderbird will scrub that number down to about 10.  Plus, it doesn't automatically delete junk mail - it simply puts it into a "JUNK" folder, which you can review from time to time, in case of a "false hit" of a legitimate message.  In two years, I've only had about 5 messages get sent into the junk folder that weren't junk.  The junk mail filter is adaptive, so as you mark messages as junk, the rules will grow.  Also, any messages that come from someone in your Address Book will automatically be flagged as "NOT JUNK" .  Best of all, you won't have to get a new email address.  I know that Outlook Express does this, too, but Thunderbird is much easier to use - in my humble opinion.

[Chief-O]

One word:

Gmail.

[chnlsrfr4]

I don't see why people hate Spam so much. I mean, put that stuff on a sandwich with a little dijon mustard and you have a tasty snack.

[Joe_Mello]

I typically recommend:
a) running your protection programs (antivirus, spy sweep, etc)
b) deleting all non-essential cookies
c) clear your browser cache
d) hide your e-mail address from public view wherever it's visible.

You probably can't do D, but those are my recommendations.

[CrimsonViper]

I do agree with Chief-O; Gmail does work wonders.  At most I only get a few spams in my inbox over the course of a day or two.  

By the way, when I originally read the topic title, I thought you were questioning the amount of randomness that's appeared over these past few weeks, and just got around to addressing the problem.

[Ccook]

There is another sort of spam that is difficult to control, and that's spam from zombie accounts. I'd been deluged with spam from names that look like regular people but their accounts have become dormant, and the spam is either erectile dynfunction drugs or stock tips for a worthless petroleum company. The perpetrators (usually a spambot) merely tap into the dormant account and spread their spam to as many people as they can and there's nothing we can do to stop it since our spam filters don't recognize it as spam. They see it as legitimate e-mail.

I had since switched to a new e-mail account and name because I'd been flooded with returned, undeliverable e-mail from people I've never even heard of, let along sent them anything. So far, the inbox has been quite silent.

[Joe_Mello]

Hmmm.  I think that's the main type of spam nowadays.

And I think we found our next Resident Evil spoof. >>

[strongbad]

I use an email address that I only have crap forwarded to when I sign up for websites or newsletters or what have you.  My actual email address I only give out to friends or family.  I find this works very well, because I rarely end up with spam in that account (using gmail helps too).

[tpiradam]

My Mom tried changing her e-mail address to get rid of spam but she still eventually recieved some. I have Rogers Yahoo e-mail and with my account it separates spam and regular mail. The spam goes into an area called bulk and I can just empty the file from there.

[JayG]

strongbad wrote:
I use an email address that I only have crap forwarded to when I sign up for websites or newsletters or what have you.  My actual email address I only give out to friends or family.  I find this works very well, because I rarely end up with spam in that account (using gmail helps too).

That is definitly the way to go, IMO.  In fact, my ISP, AT&T Yahoo!, actually lets you create disposable e-mail addresses specifically for spam (or anything else you want.)  That way, you can still protect your main e-mail address from spam, but still be able to keep all your e-mail in a single account.  (I send all my spam e-mail from my disposable address in a seperate folder.)