This thought was triggered by this thread, and I have noticed several others from American based Dopers complaining about similar problems.
I use W10 and Hotmail, and although I do get some spam, it rarely amounts to more than three or four ads for pharmaceuticals and ‘young’ ladies offering unspecified services daily.
Since I do sometimes visit what might be seen as ‘risky’ (maybe risqué too) sites and only have the free version of AVG to shield me, I might have expected more on the basis of what I see here
I use Gmail, and while I do get spam, it only occasionally slips through to my inbox. I usually delete the contents of my spam folder without looking at it.
I should have been more specific. The spam I refer to above is in my ‘spam’ folder and gets deleted mostly unseen. In my email folder proper, I probably get two or three a month.
I do like to check the spam folder as it sometimes happens that a legitimate and wanted email gets diverted there.
There’s at most only a weak link between what websites you visit and how much spam you get. Spam is largely a function of how often you’ve signed up for email newsletters, contests, and so forth; how much online shopping you do, and where; as well as how often those lists get sold.