Having spring-cleaned the PC and reloaded those apps I want and need (as distinct from those I downloaded way back when and simply forgot about), I am keen to keep up with the 'housekeeping' and avoid accumulating more crap.
Along with everyone else who has an email account, uses newsgroups or has bought something online, I am plaugued by spam on a daily basis and have been seeking a sensible and relatively low-maintenance solution to this problem for some time.
In the early years, I used my own customised rules or filters (depending on my email program at the time) to filter out the regular culprits by address, domain, vocabulary and phrasing. As the problem worsened, I tried a variety of add-ons including MailWasher and SpamNet (originally Vipul's Razor) but have usually parted company when the beta phases came to an end, the heavy-duty subscription requests arrived or punative restrictions were applied. Don't get me wrong, I'll happily pay for good software - I just less than happy about certain ecommerce methods.
As always, I have eneded up gravitating towards the GPL world and have been following a few promising projects at SourceForge. Today, I have plumped for POPFile - Automatic Email Classification and have spent a while getting it set up to work with my varied POP3 accounts. Although it is way too early to report any findings, the setup process was easy (RTFM or the online FAQs atleast) and the only teething problem has been an inability to get onto my own SquirrelMail based account on my host server in the States. NB:This teething problem proved to be user error - I had reconfigured the account incorrectly in my email client - nothing to do with PopFile, SquirrelMail or my host (especially my host - just ask him how many times I have forgotten my access codes or lock myself out!).
More on this story as it happens...
Posted by bignoseduglyguy at September 28, 2003 03:12 PM | TrackBackPOPFile's great - I used it for a while, but I've now implemented the ultimate spam-prevention method which means I never get any, so there's not much point in using a filter any more.
My ultimate method is dead simple - my primary email address is only given out to Real People, and never published anywhere on the Internet. It never gets spam.
My secondary address is the one I use on the Net. I try to avoid giving it to sites I don't trust, and it gets maybe one spam every six months. When that happens I just change it. It means I have to then change my details at all the sites I use, but I keep a list of all their User Preferences URLs so it only takes a few minutes.
When I have to give an email address to a site I don't trust, I use the services of www.spamgourmet.com.
Use this method and you to can be (almost) spam free!
Posted by: SimonG at September 28, 2003 04:53 PMOh, and you might also want to remove your email address from the source of this page to stymie nasty spambots - here's a handy tool that will convert your email link into javascript that they can't understand:
http://jscript.dk/2002/3/obfuscate.html
Posted by: SimonG at September 28, 2003 05:10 PM