The novelty has definitely worn off where Spam is concerned. No longer do I chuckle when I get emails inviting me to enlarge my penis or invest in stocks that are about to go through the roof. But how do I stop the stuff?
I’ve tried Spam filters both locally on my PC and remotely on the server. They work 90% to 95% of the time but 5% to 10% of the time they put Spam into my Inbox and legitimate emails into the Spam bin. Which means that I end up having to check 100% of incoming emails, so might as well not bother with the Spam filters at all....
Is there a better way of dealing with Spam? How about one of those ‘enter the letters in this image’ thingummies that force people to fill in some data before letting their email through? Are they any better than Spam filters? Are there any that are both free and actually work? Or am I forever condemned to read how to enlarge my penis and make a fortune overnight? All helpful comments will be grateful received - but all Spam will be ruthlessly deleted...
On a lighter note, here is the sketch and song (with subtitles which, as far as I can recall, were not in the original) that gave its name to Spam as we know it...
Messages sent to your bluebottle email account are only delivered to your inbox if:
You have sent a message to the incoming email address ( via Bluebottle ) previously.
The senders address is in your whitelist , which will accept a CSV export from outlook and other email clients.
The sender responds correctly to a message sent by Bluebottle , asking them for confirmation of the validity of the message / sender.
The sender includes a ’magic’ password in the subject , which bypasses all validation checks.
You have looked in your ’pending’ folder and manually given that sender permission.
There is a free trial service , which does not expire , but includes advertising messages on the bottom of emails.
A paid subscription costs just US$10 , and a premium service is available which ( off the top of my head ) allows full customization of the response message and some other extras too.
I find it works supremely well , and assuming you send mails via the bluebottle servers only traps legitimate mail when it comes from either a new contact ( who has not received the ’response required request’ due to their spam filters ) or those from shopping sites confirming an order placed or a newsletter signed up for online . If you are expecting an email from a shopping site / newsletter , just give it 10 - 15 minutes and then check the pending box . If not expecting an email from such a site , it probably is spam.
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