De-Spam Your Inbox: "How to Fight the Spam War and Win!"

Written by Merle


Spam, Spam everywhere... what's a person to do? If you're an online entrepreneur, odds are your mailbox is filling up daily with Spam. The longer you've been "working"repparttar Net andrepparttar 132737 more visible you've become,repparttar 132738 more you're probably receiving. I've been online about five years now, and one of my mailboxes alone is over 85% Spam.

First, you need to realize that Spam is part of doing business online and there's really no escaping it. But that doesn't mean you can't rid yourself of it by using repparttar 132739 right tools and arming yourself for daily battle.

There are many excellent tools, some even free that will help you fightrepparttar 132740 war on Spam and Win! Let's review some of my personal favorites:

1) SpamNet: http://www.CloudMark.com

This excellent piece of software is a relative newcomer and free to download. It only works with Outlook and runs invisibly inrepparttar 132741 background of your mail program. The software adds 2 new buttons atrepparttar 132742 top of Outlook's interface named "block" and "unblock" and adds a "Spam folder" where it puts all ofrepparttar 132743 Spam it finds so you can review it if you want before deletion.

If you get a piece of junk when you download your mail, just hitrepparttar 132744 block button. This sends it and whateverrepparttar 132745 sender tries to mail you inrepparttar 132746 future straight torepparttar 132747 Spam folder. It also casts your vote to CloudMark and when they receive enough complaints on a sender that mail is automatically labeled as Spam.

If, after reviewingrepparttar 132748 Spam folder, you find something that doesn't belong there, just highlight it and clickrepparttar 132749 "unblock" button to bringrepparttar 132750 sender back in to your inbox forever more. Right now this software only works with Outlook, but there is talk about a version for Outlook Express coming soon.I've been using this software for a few months and am very pleased with repparttar 132751 results. Runs on Win 98/NT/2000/XP.

2) MailWasher: http://www.MailWasher.net

Another ad-supported free piece of software that works beautifully. I've been using this with my Outlook Express accounts and couldn't be happier. You run Mailwasher before downloading your mail from your server. It automatically marks mail it suspects as Spam - then you can designaterepparttar 132752 sender as a "friend" or blacklist him with just a click. You then click "process mail" and any "bad" email is bounced back to repparttar 132753 sender andrepparttar 132754 good stuff is sent to your inbox.

You can upgrade Mailwasher to an ad-free version by sending a donation to its creators. Believe me, you'll love it so much you'll want to send them money for all repparttar 132755 headaches this software will save you. It can be configured to check multiple accounts so it's great if you're managing multiple identities and boxes.It does not support web based accounts like Hotmail or Yahoo, but a version is supposedly underway for them. Runs on Win 95/98/ME/NT4/ 2000/XP

3) SpamBuster: http://www.Contactplus.com/products/spam/spam.htm

The free version of this software is ad-supported, which means it displays banners atrepparttar 132756 top. If you spendrepparttar 132757 19.95 and register it,repparttar 132758 ads are removed. Before using your POP mail account you run SpamBuster, which looks for junk and comes complete with a list of over 17,000 known spammers. It checks your email periodically for new messages and provides stats and charts of how much Spam you're actually receiving. Also Works with AOL, Hotmail, or Yahoo! accounts. Works on Win 95/98/2000/ME/NT/XP

4) MailShell: http://www.MailShell.com

Blocks 99% of all junk mail and works with your current email address. Free 30 day trial available. Less then 3.00 a month after that

What is Spam Anyway?

Written by Richard Lowe


I've found when people discuss spam they really have no idea what they are talking about. There are as many different definitions of spam as there are people. In point of fact, this factor alone (not being able to define what spam is and what it consists of) makes it virtually impossible to control.

In order to control spam, a useful definition is necessary. Why? Simple. In order to control something, you must know what you are controlling. When you understandrepparttar basic facts, then you can take whatever course of action is necessary. Until you achieve that understanding, you will be shooting blindly at an undefined target. This makes it very difficult to actually do anything useful.

So on that note, what kind of definitions for spam work and don't work?

Commonly spam is defined as unsolicited email. Unfortunately, this definition by itself is NOT spam and means absolutely nothing. What's wrong with it? This definition does not help you solverepparttar 132735 problem, and thus is incorrect. If this definition was true, then to prevent spam you would have to somehow contact a person to ask them if you could send them an email.

For example, I don't generally call someone onrepparttar 132736 phone and ask them for an email message. That would be silly. In fact, by definition most email is unsolicited; I don't, for example, expect my wife or a friend to ask me if it's okay to send me a message.

Sometimes spam is defined as emails that are from unknown sources. Hmm. This really doesn't work well either. I'll get emails from my website from people I don't know - these are not spam. Also, sometimes my friends will pass my email address to their friends, who send me email. These are also not spam, even though they were from an unknown source and were unsolicited.

How about just plain annoying emails? That seems to berepparttar 132737 definition that most people have in mind when they mention spam. Ifrepparttar 132738 email is annoying in some manner, and especially if it was unsolicited, it is spam. This definition probably gets a little closer torepparttar 132739 heart ofrepparttar 132740 matter, but it really doesn't define spam well.

What about unsolicited bulk email? This definition gets a little bit closer but it still doesn't really define spam well. I mean I give my email address to my bank and I really didn't ask them to send me emails (although I didn't ask them not to as well). Yet I would not call this spam as I do business with repparttar 132741 bank. Their emails might be annoying, but since I have a business relationship withrepparttar 132742 bank I expect them to communicate with me occasionally.

Okay, so what is spam?

I like to think of spam as "unethical mass email". By this I mean emails which violaterepparttar 132743 netiquette standards ofrepparttar 132744 majority of users ofrepparttar 132745 internet.

Note that by this definition, an individual email sent to a person is not spam. A commercial email, however, is another matter. Even a single commercial email might be unethical if it does not followrepparttar 132746 rules below.

Ethical emails are targeted well towards their audience. Unethical emails are mass mailings sent out blindly to a large number of people.

These are emails that are sent to thousands, tens of thousands, even millions of people, hoping against hope that a few dozen will be stupid or greedy enough to respond. These emails are untargeted and will not pertain torepparttar 132747 majority ofrepparttar 132748 recipients. Sincerepparttar 132749 majority ofrepparttar 132750 people readingrepparttar 132751 message (usually upwards of 99%) will simply delete it immediately, this makesrepparttar 132752 mailing unethical.

Ethical email messages include valid email header information. This information properly identifiesrepparttar 132753 sender ofrepparttar 132754 message. In addition, all ofrepparttar 132755 other header data inrepparttar 132756 message is correct.

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