Weekend Open Forum: Is spam still a big problem for you?

[Jos]

Have you noticed any less spam in your inbox lately? You should, according to Symantec Intelligence, which claims the volume of junk mail sent worldwide has dropped around 80% over the past year. A large part of this came from the demise of affiliate networks paying for spam campaigns, such as Spamit, and coordinated efforts between the tech industry and law enforcement to kill major spam networks such as Rustock.

To be honest, Gmail's spam filter does a highly effective job of filtering out the garbage from my personal email account, so spam hasn't been a huge problem for me in a while -- though my TechSpot inbox still lets a few shady messages slip by. 

But we want to hear your experience: is spam a big issue for you? If so, how much of your daily email comes from unsolicited sources? Do you use custom filters or special software to keep your inbox free of junk?

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https://www.techspot.com/news/44613-weekend-open-forum-is-spam-still-a-big-problem-for-you.html

 

[BrianUMR]

No

Pretty much that simple. With the use of more than one email you can pretty much set it up so all your spam goes to one.

 

[pcnthuziast]

Got 3 emails and 0 spam. I'm discrete with all 3 and choose very carefully who to give my addy to.

 

[gwailo247]

I actually have more problems with legitimate e-mails being flagged as spam, than with spam somehow making its way into my inbox.

 

[3DCGMODELER]

yes i hate it.... .

I actually have more problems with legitimate e-mails being flagged as spam, than with spam somehow making its way into my inbox. ... ditto

a few a day maybe 3 to 4 ...

 

[tonylukac]

I never use spam filters except in gmail as they don't work, but I've always opted out of getting email and I really don't get much. Spam is thus no problem.

 

[Guest]

Gmail eliminated spam for me since 2004 or whenever I received my invite. (there is LOTS of spam in my spam folder, but none in my inbox)

 

[matrix86]

Guest said:
Gmail eliminated spam for me since 2004 or whenever I received my invite. (there is LOTS of spam in my spam folder, but none in my inbox)

Ditto

 

[techfiend4]

matrix86 said:

Guest said:
Gmail eliminated spam for me since 2004 or whenever I received my invite. (there is LOTS of spam in my spam folder, but none in my inbox)

Ditto

same here, though i have had it send legit emails to spam folder

 

[Archean]

No, at worst I get 1 spam email a month.

I guess may be it is still a problem for those who register themselves with pron sites

 

[mrtraver]

I have been using the same yahoo email address for at least 4 years, and get maybe 5 spam emails a week, all in the spam folder. I'm more careful than i used to be about what sites i let have my email address. I did have a problem with one address when I signed up somewhere to win a free xbox; overnight more than half my emails were spam and i eventually abandoned the email address.

 

[motrin]

spam is not a prob.

a company or forum i'm a member of gets hacked and ssends me e-mails is a prob.

 

[SNGX1275]

I have a yahoo account that I sign up for somewhat shady stuff with, its spam filter isn't very good. Gmail's on the other hand is really good, but as others have pointed out, occasionally it screws up and I get something important ending up in spam.

 

[TomSEA]

As other's have mentioned, having multiple e-mail accounts makes all the difference in the world. I have one specifically for online ordering and registrations and it gets the bulk of the spam, although 95% of it ends up in the spam bin anyway. It's a Yahoo! account and for me seems to do fairly well.

On the flip side of that though, some times the spam filter is a little too active and I have to dig through it to find legitimate e-mails.

But in answering the question, no spam isn't a problem for me. I don't hardly spend any time with it at all these days.

 

[Archean]

I have a yahoo account that I sign up for somewhat shady stuff with, its spam filter isn't very good.

I have yahoo email account for ages, and I don't remember last time when spam ended up in my inbox, what little spam I get it always end up in the spam folder; so IMO it is as good as if not better.

 

[Punkid]

nope, its almost down to zero percent now...the very that DO come go straight to the junk, and i get only about 10-20 of those per week....

 

[red1776]

i apparently am one of the last few using Hotmail on the planet, but I don't remember the last time one made it through to my inbox.

 

[Archean]

Don't worry red I am using hotmail as well, mainly because it has an excellent email client and its interface is minimalistic/simple. In fact I got yahoo and hotmail accounts since the last ice age and am happy with both of them

 

[Timonius]

I still get some spam but not nearly as much as I used to. When I read about the major crackdowns on spammers (someone in Russia was one of them) quite a few months back I noticed that my spam went down a lot. From a dozen or so a day in the spam box to maybe three or four a week now (if that). Maybe one spam every two months is a legitimate e-mail. No spam has shown up in my inbox for years.

 

[Wendig0]

It is funny that there is supposedly an 80% decline in spam, yet over the last 6 weeks I have noticed a near 200% increase in the number of spam messages I receive. Most are filtered by gmail, though I have had to mark at least 6-7 messages/day as spam from my inbox. If this continues on an upward trend like this I will probably end up creating another primary email account.

On a related note, most of the spam I get is for "breast enlargement", but I thought my man-boobs were big enough. whatgives.jpg?

 

[red1776]

On a related note, most of the spam I get is for "breast enlargement", but I thought my man-boobs were big enough.

Well the trend is toward larger, I'm thinking of having mine redone in time for Christmas!

 

[Guest]

Never really got any spam since getting Gmail seven years ago or whenever. Haven't really had the problem others are mentioning of legitimate emails being marked as spam either. Usually once a day I quickly glance at the spam folder on my Gmail account for anything that shouldn't be there, then empty its contents so it's very easy to keep track of.

 

[treetops]

My main email is yahoo, its 12 years old. I never check it unless I am expecting something because I get hundreds of spam messages a day. I want to start over with gmail but I already have so much connected to my old yahoo account. Sigh I hate spam. I could make a gmail and use that for anything new and slowly convert but I have my steam bnet and many other accounts tied to my old one.

 

[Mizzou]

I'm using gmail and very rarely see any spam reach the Inbox. Still review the spam folder before clearing just to make sure nothing has been misdirected. Average about 10-12 spam emails a day, probably half of these are vendors that I've dealt with in the past that never give up. All in all I haven't seen a reduction but I've had this gmail account forever and a day so it's just inevitable that it winds up on assorted mailing lists.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could tag spam by sender or subject to have the mail system simply report it as undeliverable?

 

[fpsgamerJR62]

Every couple of days, one or two spam emails get through but overall, the number has been greatly reduced. That's pretty amazing since my ISP does not apply email filtering.