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How to Defeat Spam
Clear Your Inbox of Spam
How to clear your inbox of spam?
But what do you do about all the spam you are currently receiving? There are several options each with their own advantages and disadvantages.
Do nothing. Delete the junk mail and spam as it comes in. If you don’t get a lot of spam, this is the easiest solution. In this case, spam may be a nuisance, but the time it takes is minimal. The biggest disadvantage is that you will, over time, probably get more spam.
Redirect your mail to an on-line email account such as Google or Yahoo. Both of these companies offer free email accounts and do a very good job of catching Spam. Google will even let you forward your filtered mail to a POP 3 Account like MS Outlook, Outlook Express or Eudora. The advantage here is that they are free. The disadvantage is that you have to set up and maintain another new email account. You do not have control over the filtering of the emails so you could loose an important email. NOTE: Do not use Hotmail this way. Hotmail is one of the worst services in regards to receiving spam.
Use Mozilla Thunderbird -- an open source e-mail client that has built in spam filtering. This would replace your current email program such as Outlook. The advantage is that “each email you receive passes through Thunderbird's junk mail filters. Each time you mark a message as spam, Thunderbird improves its filtering. Thunderbird will also use your mail provider's spam filters to keep junk mail out of your inbox.” The disadvantage is that you have to train the spam filter and you will still be on a spammer’s list. It also means one more computer program on your computer, you will not be able to access Netscape WebMail and Hotmail accounts through Thunderbird and you will have to set up a new Address book.
Use a Spam Filter with your current email program (e.g. Outlook). Using Bayesian filters (which measure the probability of an email being spam by a complex formula). SpamBayes is an open source program that works with Outlook (and other programs). The disadvantage with using a local Spam Filter is that you have to “train” the program. You will still receive spam, but you mark the email as spam and the filter sill remember it for the next time. Again, you will still be on a spammer’s list.
There is one program, over all the others that we recommend.