# I have this overwhelming spam problem how do I get rid of it for free? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 27, 2002, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-this-overwhelming-spam-problem-how-do-i-get-rid-of-it-for-free/139062 "2002-11-27T06:21:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jukeball](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@Jukeball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jukeball)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2002, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-this-overwhelming-spam-problem-how-do-i-get-rid-of-it-for-free/139062/1 "2002-11-27T06:21:22Z")
I get around 30 emails a days as junk mail , blocking the address doesnt seem to help , nor does continuous unsuscribng either. I hate to delete the mail everyday . My ISP doesnt provide any kind of junk filter. Can anyonme help me here? Thanx Jay ---
**Author:** ![Fornit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c89c15/32.png) [@Fornit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fornit)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2002, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-this-overwhelming-spam-problem-how-do-i-get-rid-of-it-for-free/139062/2 "2002-11-27T09:04:30Z")
change your email address and only give out the new one to a limited number of people. Keep a fake hotmail account open for when you need to fill out some online form. Also, from what I’ve heard/read… unsubscribing to Spam just confirms that it’s a real email address and then they can turn around and sell it to other spammers I need to go grab my thesaurus to adequately describe how much I despise Spam!!! (see I gave them 4 exclamation points… must show that I hate them a lot 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2002, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-this-overwhelming-spam-problem-how-do-i-get-rid-of-it-for-free/139062/3 "2002-11-27T10:50:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jukeball \* > \*\*I get around 30 emails a days as junk mail \*\* You are in a hopeless situation. Once your email address gets in the wrong hands it will get spam forever as it continually gets sold on to more spammers. As you say, blocking addresses achieves nothing as more spammers come along and they rarely use the same return address twice anyway. Unsubscribing only ensures that you get more, and what are you going to do, unsubscribe from every spammer there is and ever will be? You have three options: - dump your email address, get another and be very careful who you give it to. Don’t get a hotmail one, they’re guaranteed spam no matter what you do. - get software that rejects all email unless it is on a ‘friends’ list. The drawback to this is that no-one can email you until you put them on the list. But I can see this becoming the default for most email systems. Spam is going to kill email as we know it. - lobby your electoral representatives to make spamming punishable by death, prefereably very painfully. A little extreme, it’s true, but would make a lot of people happy. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2002, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-this-overwhelming-spam-problem-how-do-i-get-rid-of-it-for-free/139062/4 "2002-11-27T12:22:56Z")
I’ve had luck using the “unsubscribe” thing. Doesn’t work with all spam, but it does help when I go through once every couple months and unsubscribe from everything. I do what I suspect a lot of people do - I have two email accounts. ANYTHING that even has a remote chance of going public gets the hotmail account (ie, posting on message boards, ebay, registering for Web sites, etc). My “real” address only gets used for completely secure communication - ie, I give it to my husband, my really good friends, and my business contacts. Nobody else. If the spam gets too bad on the ‘public’ account (I use hotmail), I’ll delete it and get a new one. ---
**Author:** ![muttrox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a8b319/32.png) [@muttrox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muttrox)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2002, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-this-overwhelming-spam-problem-how-do-i-get-rid-of-it-for-free/139062/5 "2002-11-27T14:41:58Z")
Another option: Instead of blocking emails based on sender, do it based on subject and/or content. Some simple rules will bring the number of spam down significantly. Keywords to look for might be: Penis, Free, Mortgage, Sex, Credit… You may also eliminate some legit emails this way, so you be the judge for keywords. Just about all email clients have the capability to do this. If you are more sophisticated with programming, there are some interesting articles out there on using Bayes Theorem to produce a really good dynamic filter. See [http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html) for more info. ---
**Author:** ![Lagged2Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ac8455/32.png) [@Lagged2Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lagged2Death)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2002, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-this-overwhelming-spam-problem-how-do-i-get-rid-of-it-for-free/139062/6 "2002-11-27T14:57:57Z")
I’ve been using a free program called [MailWasher](http://www.mailwasher.net) to sort my incoming mail. It takes a guess at stuff that is probably spam, allows you to blacklist/whitelist source addresses, and allows you to set up your own filtering rules. Most importantly, it can send fake mail-bounce messages back to spammers, who will then (hopefully) figure your address is invalid and remove it from their e-mail database. Since I’ve started using it, my level of spam has dropped quite a bit, from 20-30 a day to perhaps 4 a day. I really should send the author a few bucks. And in general, if you’re looking for free software of any sort, a good resource is the usenet group [alt.comp.freeware](http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=alt.comp.freeware). ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2002, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-this-overwhelming-spam-problem-how-do-i-get-rid-of-it-for-free/139062/7 "2002-11-27T15:00:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Athena \* > I’ve had luck using the “unsubscribe” thing. Doesn’t work with all spam, but it does help when I go through once every couple months and unsubscribe from everything. I’m not trying to start an argument about this, but the problem with this approach is, if it doesn’t work, you won’t know it until too late, by which time you’ve made your situation _worse_, not better. It’s a very simple rule to follow: _Never_ reply in any way to unsolicited e-mail. Doing so only confirms to the sender that they have reached a live address. There is _no_ good reason to provide a spammer with this information. ---
**Author:** ![Mac\_Guffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mac\_Guffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mac_Guffin)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2002, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-this-overwhelming-spam-problem-how-do-i-get-rid-of-it-for-free/139062/8 "2002-11-27T15:29:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lagged2Death \* > \*\*I’ve been using a free program called [MailWasher](http://www.mailwasher.net) to sort my incoming mail. It takes a guess at stuff that is probably spam, allows you to blacklist/whitelist source addresses, and allows you to set up your own filtering rules. Most importantly, it can send fake mail-bounce messages back to spammers, who will then (hopefully) figure your address is invalid and remove it from their e-mail database. > > Since I’ve started using it, my level of spam has dropped quite a bit, from 20-30 a day to perhaps 4 a day. I really should send the author a few bucks. > > And in general, if you’re looking for free software of any sort, a good resource is the usenet group [alt.comp.freeware](http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=alt.comp.freeware). \*\* I too use mailwasher, and it seems to work just dandy. Sadly, however, it doesn’t yet work with Hotmail. I get tons-o-spam on my hotmail account, but then it was set up as the spamtrap. ---
**Author:** ![aahala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e4f/32.png) [@aahala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aahala)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2002, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-this-overwhelming-spam-problem-how-do-i-get-rid-of-it-for-free/139062/9 "2002-11-27T15:29:12Z")
I take a middle position on the unsubscribe thing. If the spam is from a reputible source, like Walmart, or if it’s just a hobby type newsletter I might have signed up for previously, I will unsubscribe, otherwise, I don’t. I’ve used mailwasher for a few weeks and also am quite pleased. It has cut down a bit on the amount sent to me, but the big plus is not having to download and then delete twice(inbox then delete folder). ---
**Author:** ![milo\_minderbinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecb155/32.png) [@milo\_minderbinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/milo_minderbinder)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2002, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-this-overwhelming-spam-problem-how-do-i-get-rid-of-it-for-free/139062/10 "2002-11-27T16:04:09Z")
[Spam Gourmet](http://www.spamgourmet.com/) allows you to create temporary email addreses which only forward a certain number of messages to your real account, everything thereafter you never see. Usefull if you have to give out an address to recieve a password or such but dont want spam thereafter. milo ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2002, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-this-overwhelming-spam-problem-how-do-i-get-rid-of-it-for-free/139062/11 "2002-11-27T17:59:14Z")
Originally posted by **Jukeball** > [@](#): > > I get around 30 emails a days as junk mail Is that all? > [@](#): > > blocking the address doesnt seem to help , nor does continuous unsuscribng either. I hate to delete the mail everyday . My ISP doesnt provide any kind of junk filter. Can anyonme help me here? Use Eudora. It’s free if you’re willing to put up with the ads, or if you’re willing to go with the “lite” version. Even the “lite” version has extremely flexible spam filters though. You’ll still average an 0.5- 1% sneak-thru rate, and you’ll have to add new filters as that happens, but you should be able to cut that 30/day down to 3/week.