Getting Along With Your Computer Column Archive

Spam Blockers
By Cate Eales

Appeared January 19, 2006 on castanet.net

If you've been following this column for awhile now, you know that you can install a free anti-virus program, a free firewall program, and free spyware blockers/cleaners. "But I'm still getting junk email!" I hear you cry.

Junk email ("spam") first made its appearance in 1978. Things were pretty quiet until 1994 when spam started to become commonplace. Last year the annual average percentage of spam was 68.6 percent, or one in every 1.46 email messages identified as spam, according to Clickz.com. Wow.

Is there any way to stop it? Yes…and no. There doesn't seem to be anything that will stop it entirely, but there are a few things you can do so you don't have to look at most of it. If you are using Telus or Shaw as your ISP, you can take advantage of their free junk mail filters.

ISP Junk mail Filtering
To set up filtering with Shaw or Telus, you'll need to visit their "customer care" page on the web. Once you've gone through the prompts to the area that lets you set up a filter, you'll see that you have three choices. The first one is "Do nothing" which is what you're already doing. That's not working out, so let's look at the other two choices. These are "Delete" and "Tag".

If you choose "Delete" then anything the filter decides is spam will never reach you. (No human beings read your mail and make these decisions; it's all done with software that looks for key words and phrases.) If you're comfortable with that, your work here is done! However, if, like me, you want to have a little more control, then choose "Tag." Your ISP will put a phrase in the subject line of anything it thinks is spam, and forward the message to you.

Email Rules
Now you'll get a bunch of email messages tagged as "Shaw Suspected Junk Mail" or whatever Telus calls the same thing. (If someone would like to let me know, I'd appreciate it.) So now we just need to create a simple rule in Outlook Express to handle the mail that comes in tagged. Once you know what the actual tag says, here's how:

Open Outlook Express and create a folder called Junk. (This column will show you how to create a folder, if you don't already know.) Now we'll create the rule.

Click on Tools | Message Rules | Mail Then, select the conditions for the rule. In this case, you want to select "Where the subject line contains the specific words". Then, select the actions for this rule. You want "Move it to the specified folder".

Set up the specifics in the Rule Description box. First, click on the link in "specific words" and type in whatever the Telus tag says. (Again, in my case that would be [Shaw Suspected Junk Email]. Telus customers would need to collect the first batch of email after applying the "tag" to find out the exact phrase. Then, click on the link for the "specified" folder, and point to Junk.

Finally, give this rule an informative name, like Junk Mail, and OK your way out. If you already have other rules, make sure you move this one to the top of the list so it does its thing first.

Now when you collect your email, you should find MOST of the junk going right into the Junk folder. You need to have a look in there every so often to make sure the filters aren't making a mistake and putting something in there that you really want. Both Telus and Shaw have ways that you can "teach" the filter what is not junk if necessary. Be sure to dump the junk mail in the Trash now and again.

Once you're comfortable that only junk mail is going into the Junk folder, you can consider going back to ISP's setup page and having them Delete the spam for you.

Other Options
If your ISP doesn't offer some sort of filtering, you can purchase a program to do it for you. Mailwasher V5 (available here: http://www.firetrust.com/firetrustpro.html) does much the same thing as the filters Telus and Shaw use, and offers you more control. The program costs US$ 37.00, and you can try it for free.

Thunderbird, the email client from Mozilla (available here: http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/) comes with built-in filters, and they learn from you.

Gmail also now includes spam filters. If you need a Gmail invitation, I still have some left. Email me and let me know if you want one.

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Cate Eales has been helping people make online computing safe, accessible and fun for over 20 years. She lives in Kelowna with her husband, Eric, and her dog, Sandy. Cate is a partner in Real Life Internet Solutions, helping individuals and small businesses with virus, spyware and malware eradication; personal computer training and management; digital image management; music transfer; and website design, hosting and management. Email Cate at cate@rlis.com with your comments, suggestions, or questions. To browse the column archives, visit the Real Life Internet Solutions website at www.rlis.com, or subscribe by email, here.

© Cate Eales 2005 – All Rights Reserved