How Do I Really Stop Spam?

Dear Rich,

How do I stop emails for penis enlargement, rolex watches and the like? I'm getting dozens every day.

--Inundated in Islesboro

Dear Inundated,

Just a couple of dozen a day? You're getting off easy.

I've tried a number of third-party solutions over the years, including a personal favorite, SpamSieve (mac only.) Windows users have suggested some of their own favorites in another post here at the flyte blog.

Unfortunately, I've noticed that SpamSieve isn't what it used to be; it seems that more and more spam is getting through. More frustrating is that often it's the same messages over and over again:

Hello! I am tired today. I am nice girl that would like to chat with you. Email me at Emma@whatever.com only, because I am using my friend's email to write this. Would you mind if I share some of my pictures with you?

Recently while playing around with an autoresponder on our server I saw that I could enable SpamAssassin, a spam filter that works on the server level. I've always avoided these tools because I'm afraid of missing potential new business, and I've felt that wading through tons of spam is the price we pay. However, with over 200 pieces of spam a day I was willing to take a chance.

SpamAssassin has been amazing. Over the past week it has caught about 98% of my spam WITHOUT ONE FALSE POSITIVE! (A false positive is a good email that's tagged as spam.) It's almost like I have an assistant who's vetting my emails. SpamSieve is then catching the remaining few that do get through.

You can set SpamAssassin to any level you like:

This version of SpamAssassin runs on Apache, but there are also versions for Windows and Mac...just Google it.

It is by far the best spam blocking tool I've ever used.

Rich Brooks
Virtually Spam Free

Comments

[Marya]

hey Rich, you should also mention that many web hosts include Spam Assassin, or a similar server-side spam filter, as part of their service. (I imagine 'apache' might as well be Greek for a lot of your readers!) My web host, Pair networks, has a service that allows you to save the mail marked junk to a text file, so you can review it periodically and make sure you're not missing any important messages that have been mislabeled.

[Jonathan]

I've always found detouring email through GMail's servers is a good way to clean up the spam. I don't spend much time looking for false positives, but I've never run into the situation of "did you ever get my email?" with GMail. A really flexible control panel makes routing email through GMail a breeze.

[Hazel]

Routing through Gmail or AOL is a good idea -- very rare to get any spam at all.
I do, however, have one mail address (the one shown on my website) that used to get several hundred enlargement-type emails a day. Using Outlook Express (I'm an old fashioned kind of girl) I simply set message rules that delete the p word and Rolex etc from the server. Now I only get the very odd few that are easily handled.