Parker 19761 Report post Posted April 13, 2010 I've been getting a lot of spam e-mails recently, unfortunately they are going to my thunderbird... which (as far as I can tell) doesn't seem to have any way to block senders as hotmail does... ..So.. I starting searching and blocking IPs, since it's easily done through my website management panel. That's when I discovered that most of the IPs where actually coming from America but were being routed through proxy servers in Europe and Asia.. My big question is how many people actually use proxy servers? I would hate to be blocking people from seeing my site, but getting hundreds of spam e-mails from Russian and Bulgarian proxy servers, eating up my e-mail space on my server is really, really annoying. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
capitalman 3861 Report post Posted April 13, 2010 I don't use a proxy, but have. I own my own domains and simply create my own email addresses which I forward to my ISP email address, which I NEVER give to anyone under any circumstance. If I start to get a bunch of spam, I just change my email address and presto, no more spam. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Parker 19761 Report post Posted April 13, 2010 I don't use a proxy, but have. I own my own domains and simply create my own email addresses which I forward to my ISP email address, which I NEVER give to anyone under any circumstance. If I start to get a bunch of spam, I just change my email address and presto, no more spam. Yeah, I did that last time.. it worked and lasted for quite a while.. The only problem was I had to go to every site I had ads and such to change my e-mails, one's I missed were deleted, or had the wrong e-mail... Then there's clients... all in all, changing it is just a big hassle.. I was kind of hoping that Thunderbird would have some sort of blocking addon, but I couldn't find one.. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
whatsup 11893 Report post Posted April 13, 2010 Naomi Thunderbird will do junk filtering (link) I noticed that you give your actual email address on your website. I would think that it would be susceptible to bots. I know it would be a pain in your cute little ass to change your email address on your site and other websites that you advertise on, but putting in something like info[removethis]@miss-naomi.net would solve a lot of your spam issues. I am sure potential clients could figure out what to remove. ;-) I am not a computer geek but I hope this helps. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mod 135640 Report post Posted April 13, 2010 Plus plugins to thunderbird exist to do spam as well (I would search for one that uses http://www.spamhaus.org) do a quick search and you will see lots of anti spam and phishing plugins to choose from. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Parker 19761 Report post Posted April 13, 2010 Plus plugins to thunderbird exist to do spam as well (I would search for one that uses http://www.spamhaus.org) do a quick search and you will see lots of anti spam and phishing plugins to choose from. My only problem with this is that it doesn't stop the messages from coming to me, it just stops me from seeing them. Though they will get filtered out by the e-mail addon, it doesn't stop them from coming through my account, which eats up my bandwidth.. they wouldn't bug me so much if they weren't chewing me towards my limit.. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dunkinsailor 1220 Report post Posted April 13, 2010 The business I work at had a growing spam problem, and we pretty well solved it by using gmail to handle all of our email domains. If you're not a techie, it's a bit daunting to figure out; in that case, find (and hire if needed) a capable techie to set it up for you. Gmail does a super job of filtering spam, and bandwidth is no longer an issue. You can also customize what email address(es) gmail shows in outgoing email, so to the person on the outside, there's no visible indication you're using gmail. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mod 135640 Report post Posted April 13, 2010 they wouldn't bug me so much if they weren't chewing me towards my limit.. Hmmm, wonder if you could forward your email to hotmail, gmail or yahoo and have thunderbird pick it up using the pop3 settings for just the email in your NON-JUNK folder? I don't have a hotmail, gmail or yahoo account to see if this is possible. I have never tried any of these either but stuff does exist like mail washer (http://www.mailwasher.net/) it lets you preview before you download and delete them off the server before downloading them to your computer. I have never tried any of these but I suspect it is possible (I don't know if this mail washer example I put up is any good so be careful choosing - this was only an example and I could not tell you first hand if it's ok or not) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dunkinsailor 1220 Report post Posted April 13, 2010 i use mailwasher (the older free edition, can't speak for the most recent releases). I use it for one account that is almost completely spam (100+ msgs / day), plus I have spam assassin enabled on my pop server account. The main reason I prefer it over gmail for that account is it's more configurable, and in practice, takes me less time to run and manage. For less than 50 spams/per day, I find gmail quicker and easier. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Ou**or**n Report post Posted April 13, 2010 Naomi: I understand your issue as you are using your own domain. You may want to check this out - http://www.shoestringbranding.com/2008/02/15/branded-gmail-address/ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Parker 19761 Report post Posted April 14, 2010 Thank you everyone for the suggestions.. I will obviously have to do a bit more research, though this domain to gmail option is looking promising. xo Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BownChickaBown 4829 Report post Posted May 8, 2010 I use SnapHost.com (free captcha service) and a contact form (with e-mail addy hidden from the public) on my websites with the domains I own (100s). I found this works well for me. Without any legacy issues for marketing of any particular e-mail address, I created a new one for the form and have not had ANY spam since. If you would like more info (even the code), just PM me, as I have worked on a few SP websites before. What can I say, I am a Web Geek. :) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest s******ecan**** Report post Posted May 8, 2010 Sorry for not offering any useful advice but as a note of interest here is a link to an article about what is generally considered to be the very first spam email. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Parker 19761 Report post Posted May 8, 2010 I use SnapHost.com (free captcha service) and a contact form (with e-mail addy hidden from the public) on my websites with the domains I own (100s). I found this works well for me. Without any legacy issues for marketing of any particular e-mail address, I created a new one for the form and have not had ANY spam since. If you would like more info (even the code), just PM me, as I have worked on a few SP websites before. What can I say, I am a Web Geek. :) Yeah... as seen in other threads though, the harder it is for someone to contact you in this business, the less likely they are to bother trying. I already don't book by phone, so taking my e-mail off of my website doesn't sound like the best of ideas.. I checked out the Google thing, they actually have bandwidth limits as well.. if you go over they want you to pay for the account. I ended up switching hosts, to one with unlimited bandwidth.. they also have been helping me block proxies that are constantly being used for spam.. it seems to be the easiest way to go about it. I still get some spam, but I'm no longer under constant attack by it. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
