Advertisement In 1978 Gary Thuerk sent the first ever spam email advertising a new range of microcomputers to 400 users of the ARPANET service. In 2010 for a solution to this increasingly frustrating problem, and most of us don’t want to pay. We get quite a lot of spam here at MakeUseOf, but then so does anyone with an Behind each email is a powerful engine called the email server which pushes the emails through the internet. Even if your email’s not public, many users get targeted by so-called “dictionary” attacks against their email providers.
Most of the time, spam filters work amazingly, saving us from an inundation of scandalous, fraudulent, or other junk emails. But sometimes they fail, diverting legitimate emails you need to your spam folder. Spam filters can mistakenly flag emails that aren’t spam at all – sometimes, even important ones.
One solution is to, but if you’re already receiving a lot of spam then the problem’s going to remain. So if you’re can’t see your inbox for junk and need a break from hitting “delete” then maybe you should try one of these free services.
Ok, so it’s not a spam blocker per se – but it’s you can take advantage of and it gets the job done. Gmail uses a spam filter known as Postini, which is usually a commercial affair. By using Gmail you’re essentially getting a very expensive spam filter completely free of charge. The beauty of Google’s email service lies in the ability to connect your bog-standard POP3 accounts, allowing you to “collect” your mail from Google’s web interface. Gmail’s advanced spam filtration will help filter all incoming messages, and any detections will be labelled accordingly and kept out of sight. Once you’ve registered (choose a good spam-proof address), you can add an address under the Accounts tab in Gmail’s Settings. You won’t need to go quoting your new email, as you’ll still effectively be using your old accounts.
Using the Send mail as tool in the same configuration panel will allow you to send email from the addresses you’ve added too, and all you need to check and send mail is a web browser. What’s better than one email address? Two, it would seem. With integrated You must know by now: you need antivirus protection.
Macs, Windows and Linux PCs all need it. You really have no excuse. So grab one of these ten and start protecting your computer!, this spam filter works by forwarding mail from your main (probably public and spam-riddled) inbox through the Spamfence filters and on to another private “clean” email address. Any messages that are detected as spam along the way will be marked accordingly, and you have full control over what is done with these messages. The service adds a subject header to each message, so if you want you can allow everything through and make your own rules up with your client. Think of the extra virus protection as a free gift, not that the service will cost you anything.
If you’re a such as, Thunderbird lives on. This desktop email client thrives because of its many customization options.
These must-have Thunderbird addons will help you make the most of it. Or Eudora then chances are you’ll be looking at a solution you can download and run alongside your existing setup. Spamihilator is just that, and it even claims to have a 98% success rate. The filter sits between the big bad internet and your client, removing messages it deems to be spam. You can also train this filter, so after a while it’ll know what to do based on your previous decisions. There’s a training area to help get the learning process started, and you can even add specific words to a blacklist (thus removing future emails featuring these words). That’s not all, there’s also link filtration and the ability to download plugins.
Spamihilator provides a load of protection from spam, and it’s completely free. The only program on this list with a commercial bigger brother, MailWasher Free is a simple program that can help clean up your POP3, IMAP or webmail email address. Download the program, connect to your email and preview as many incoming messages as you like before deciding whether you want to download them or not. Using a similar Bayesian filter as Spamihilator, this program will also learn from your actions and train itself to adhere to your rules once you’ve made a few spam-busting decisions. Being the “Free” version, you’re limited to a maximum of 1 email account (and lose out on search, a customizable interface and updates).
![Filter Filter](/uploads/1/2/5/4/125430075/454236641.jpg)
This isn’t so bad, the free version really is free (forever) and if you do decide you really like it, then you could always treat yourself. Conclusion Spam’s just as annoying as it ever was, but with a couple of clever moves on your part you can help minimize it.
If you’re feeling a little more adventurous, check out Ryan’s on Windows. And don’t forget to mix it up, for example connecting your POP3 mailboxes to a Gmail account, through Spamfence and then onto another clean account will probably work wonders for your junk email problems.
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This applies to Outlook for Windows (at least 2007 to 2016 versions) and Outlook for Mac. Crucially, Exchange Server 2016 and earlier which only use the supplied spam filter will also be left without updates.
More on that below. Smartscreen in Windows and the Edge browser, to protect against malicious links and downloads, will continue to work and be updated.
![Mac computers 2017 Mac computers 2017](/uploads/1/2/5/4/125430075/979574601.png)
Why the change? Let’s not kid ourselves, it’s clearly another cost-cutting and revenue-raising move by Microsoft. Maintaining spam filters is expensive and this change will encourage Exchange Server customers to buy an external spam checking technology, often from Microsoft.
While the change is self-serving, it does make sense and should have little impact on most Outlook users. Most email checking is already done by your mail host. Any mail hosting service will have some level of spam filtering in place. Certainly Gmail, Outlook.com/Hotmail, Yahoo mail etc all have effective spam filtering already in place. Most, if not all, ISP’s have spam filtering too. These online services are much faster and more effective at detecting and trapping new types of spam.
If a new junk message is detected, it can be analyzed and a counter-measure added to servers very quickly (usually a matter of minutes). If you’re using Outlook.com or Office 365 hosted email then your email is already being checked by the same Smartscreen technology before Outlook for Windows/Mac sees the messages. The online Smartscreen will have more recent spam filters than Outlook software, so the checking is better. It’s becoming increasing rare for email to be stored solely on one computer (eg in Outlook for Windows/Mac).
More common is to have email/calendar/contacts saved ‘in the cloud’ and accessed from multiple devices (desktop, laptop, phone, browser). It makes sense to check for spam before messages arrive in the online mailbox instead of being checked by just one of the mail clients. There may be rare cases of a mail host which has no spam filtering but it’s very unusual.
We know of many cases where a mail host (usually an ISP) will say they have no spam filtering, but that’s just the ignorance of the support staff. In reality, there is a spam filter but it’s hidden from even the ISP support staff. There is a downside to online spam filtering; false positives.
There are messages you want to see which are mistakenly removed as spam with no notice to the intended receiver. Order confirmation and lost password emails are often wrongly trapped. Trying to identify and fix these mistakes is difficult and time-consuming.
For those interested, incoming messages sometimes go through multiple spam filters before reaching your online Inbox. To spread the heavy load of email checking, big systems have an initial filter which quickly clears out the obvious spam emails then a second or more servers which do more careful checks of what remains.
Outlook for Windows/Mac is OK In most cases, the messages that Outlook collects are ‘pre-filtered’ already. The spam filter in Outlook should already have little or nothing to do because the ‘cloud’ has already caught and deleted the junk email. Most Outlook for Windows users should see no change in their email or amount of spam. The Outlook Junk Email feature will continue to work but will have little to do because better spam filtering is already happening ‘upstream’ at your mail host. Outlook’s Junk Email settings will still be there, so will the Junk Email folder. We have Junk Email set to Low, as a precaution. A check of our Junk Email folders shows no spam has been trapped by Outlook for Windows for over a year!
That’s because the online services have done the job already. There’s NO need to buy additional anti-spam software. Microsoft’s announcement may be used as an excuse by software companies to sell their spam software, but’s not necessary. Workarounds As we’ve explained, with most spam filtering already happening ‘in the cloud’, most Outlook users will have nothing to do. If you’re one of the rare folks who have a truly unfiltered mail host (i.e. All messages are delivered to your online Inbox with no spam checking) from 1 st Nov 2016 you’ll gradually see an increase in undetected spam as Outlook’s Smartscreen filter becomes less relevant. You could buy anti-spam software but those tools don’t always ‘play nice’ with Outlook (many Outlook add-ons have trouble).
You have to pay for the software and regular updates too. Office-Watch.com hasn’t ever reviewed, let alone recommended, any additional anti-spam software. The better and cheaper option is using an existing, free, online service. Gmail and Outlook.com have free spam filters as part of their standard offering. It’s something they don’t mention a lot because junk email filtering is taken for granted these days. Each of the main online mail hosts has an option to regularly grab messages from other mail hosts and put them in your ‘new’ Inbox on their service.
These features are intended to help people migrate and combine their different email accounts into a single online Inbox. When messages are ‘fetched’ to your new Inbox they’ll be spam filtered for free by Gmail/Outlook.com etc. Good, timely, spam filtering is just one of the many advantages to using an online mail store, free or paid.
The options for migrating to a modern online cloud service, including ‘fetching’ of messages from other mail hosts, is in the section ‘Moving your old email address’ part of. Migrating to a 21 st Century cloud-based email system is a major part of the. Exchange Server Most independently hosted Exchange Server systems already have a third-party anti-spam system as an add-on.
The network administrators handle all that for individual mailbox users. Some ES versions include the Microsoft Smartscreen system to check emails and the updates for that will also end on 1 st Nov 2016. Those servers will have to be upgraded to add some type of external anti-spam system. Microsoft’s own Exchange Online Protection is used by Office 365 hosting and Outlook.com. Other Exchange Server systems can buy access to the same service. There are other Exchange Server compatible anti-spam systems available.
Spam is a concern to a lot of people and this change is likely to worry people. Please and we’ll respond at Office-Watch.com. We’d like to know what you’re thinking about this subject so we can explain or allay fears.
Go to our page. Please try to include details in your comments (type/version of software, web links etc).