Leitrim Business Network

13 Responses to “Dealing with SPAM Email”

1. Johnny
   January 23rd, 2008 at 12:35 pm

   

   Unfortunately, your best bet may be dan[@]hobbyhorsetoys.com.

   A contact form with a captcha http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha is another option but can be even more off putting.

   One I use is johnny(remove all this between brackets)@mydomain.com.

   Customers who can email are probably aware of the practice outlined above and removing brackets.

2. Leon Quinn
   January 23rd, 2008 at 1:15 pm

   

   First off, spam is kinda unavoidable these days, all you can do is block it really. Best place to block it is at the server so log in to your website hosting control panel and see if theres a spam filter there or ask your hosting company about it.

   You can also block it in your email client using a spam filter, I use Bullguard which seems ok but spam emails still need to be downloaded to be deleted which can take a while.

   Get Bullguard here http://www.bullguard.com/why/bullguard-spamfilter.aspx

   If you want to mess with how the email address is displayed on your site try this html code below substituting my email for yours:

   REMOVE THE ‘!’ TO THE GET THIS TO WORK

   < !script language="JavaScript">
   var name = “info”;
   var domain = “reverbstudios.ie”;
   document.write(’‘);
   document.write(name + ‘@’ + domain + ‘‘);
   < !/script>

3. Rento
   January 23rd, 2008 at 1:29 pm

   

   The only solution than in this case will be encoding email address in ascii code and put this code in HTML of your site… to generate ascii code use this form - http://www.wbwip.com/wbw/emailencoder.html

4. Rebecca (smallholder, writer, blogger, artist)
   January 23rd, 2008 at 2:00 pm

   

   Hi Johnny

   Rebecca here. I see this used a lot these days …
   danbecky [@] gmail [dot] com
   Also I’ve been told gmail has an excellent spam filter, so I’m about to try using that, unless you have any other advice.

   Would be interested to see what the others say. I currently use iolfree.ie and get about 200 spam emails a day in my spam folder, but plenty of legitimate emails go into the spam folder too, so I have to trawl through it anyway incase important contacts get lost.
   Regards, Rebecca

5. Patrick O'Rourke
   January 23rd, 2008 at 3:41 pm

   

   I have it under control using Thunderbird as it can operate very efficient filters as well as accessing the Spamassasin database. Using the Thunderbird filters to dump it automatically means it has to be downloaded first so as long as you’re not on dial-up then it’s OK. On my websites I use a graphic of the email addresses rather than a live link. I think that for people to actually type in the address is no sweat really as they understand the problems we all have. My spam problem is really only on Eircom addresses as my own domain ones are covered by the server based solution. I really only use the Eircom ones as disposable in reality.
   I just hate to think what anyone would turn into who actually bought all the products they are trying to sell if they actually worked..lol

6. Eamonn Gilheany
   January 24th, 2008 at 8:42 am

   

   Johnny,
   I’ve tried a lot of different anti spam solutions and the only one I’d recommend is popfile (Google it for download). It’s a free application and simple to configure. After a couple days of training the application it reaches over 97% accuracy. It marks each mail with an identifier e.g. “spam” allowing you to configure an outlook rules to move each spam mail to the deleted items folder after it arrives. I’ve been using it for over a year and have never had an issue with it.
   Regards,

   Eamonn

7. Garreth McDaid
   January 24th, 2008 at 11:10 am

   

   Unless you have never, ever used your email address in a public capacity, trying to disguise it will never really protect you from SPAM, as directories of email addresses are openly traded on the Internet.

   Using an image instead of text to display your email address is probably the best short term solution, provided the image distorts the text (bots can use Optical Character Recognition to figure this stuff out).

   Client based screening solutions are bad (Thunderbird has a built in solution) but you may need to reset your training on a regular basis depending on how much SPAM you get.

   The best solution involves using a server based screening tool like SPAM Assassin that maintains an individual profile for your mail (so you don’t loose any legit mail).

   SPAM Assassin can regularly update SPAM patterns and profiles, which is vital, given that SPAM changes all the time.

8. Mary C. Dolan
   January 24th, 2008 at 11:13 am

   

   1. We get upwards of 150-175 robot completed membership applications a day from the Chamber of Commerce website. I cannot mark the incomings as spam because that marks all mail to info@ as spam, a real nuisance, and besides the ’sender’ name changes all the time. Best advice we’ve received is to add a Captcha to any on-line forms and we are planning to do that.
   2. Gmail has an excellent spamcatcher but you still have to review what’s in the folder as some legitmate emails get caught as well.
   3. I have completely given up on Eircom.
   Hope this helps,
   Mary

9. Eamon Mc Grenaghan
   January 24th, 2008 at 10:05 pm

   

   I use Spamfighter which I find works well. You can try it for free for a month and purchase for $25 if you feel it does what you need it to do.

   http://www.spamfighter.com/Product_Info.asp

   Eamon

10. Bernie O Hara
    January 25th, 2008 at 1:32 pm

    

    Gmail is great we very seldom get spam.

11. Rebecca (smallholder, writer, blogger, artist)
    January 30th, 2008 at 12:52 pm

    

    Those of you who use gmail … do you use it online via a browser or do you use it via Outlook Express (or other package)? I have linked it to Outlook Express which now crashes a few times whenever I open it. Not sure if its gmail causing this or something else. I have Norton Anti-Virus which has not picked up any virus.

12. Vincent Durkin
    January 30th, 2008 at 5:27 pm

    

    Hi Rebecca.

    I chose to use Gmail since it was an easily accessible world wide web-mail system that had a very large mail storage capacity. I use is from IE browser and find its works well.

    However I do find that the system admin team in google often interrupt service real time for periods of 3 to 10min and then ‘we’re back!’ ; this might be the problem your experiencing.

    Vincent,
    _______________
    durkin | design
    Timber Frame Specialists.
    Now offering a new service of
    BER - Building Energy Rating for New Dwellings required at point of sale.
    FETAC Certified and SEI Approval pending.

13. How to Block Email Spam at Reverb Studios Web Design Leitrim Blog
    March 23rd, 2008 at 7:00 pm

    

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