email advice please

[Boddie]

I am getting increasingly annoyed with the amount of junk mail I am receiving in my AOL email account. I understand that the junk is due to the sites I subscribe to and use for passwords etc so I will probably retain the AOL account for just these purposes.

I have just bought a Blackberry and whilst the junk mail I can handle on AOL I think it will annoy me on my Blackberry.

Can anyone suggest a good email provider so as effectively I can START AGAIN and issue the email addy just to those who really need it.

I think the provider has to have POP or something like that to allow the Blackberry to retreive the messages etc.

Anyone help?

Thanks

[Brocker]

AOL have come under increasing criticism recently for passing information on to third parties for research and sales purposes. . . I had a similar experience with Plusnet also but only after BT bought them out. It was pornographic emails I was receiving and they were really quite offensive. . . I have since moved to Talktalk and that seems to have done it for now. . . One thing that you can do to help yourself though is to remove your cookies after every internet session. There is software available that you can use to clean your computer regularly and one such is 'Window Washer'. . . As for ISP's, apparently the best ones rated by 'Which' magazine are Waitrose and Tesco. Both are POP3 servers so should be ok for your Blackberry.

[Mercadante]

Spam comes to every account in the end, and it helps to use a program that filters them out first - I use a thing called Poptray.

If you're willing to change your ISP you might have a look at these people: green isp - news

If not, Googlemail is useful - you can set your account to be downloadable via POP, and you can give yourself a new account any time you like.

[Paul mabbott]

AOL is a very strange provider anyway. Hotmail is notorious for filling up your in-tray with spam ... but any of the free ones are okay because when you're getting more spam than serious messages you can forget them and re-register a new account. Fine for outgoing messages.

Obviously not very good if you have to have a public e-mail address which you can't change every year or so. We've done well with with Blueyonder (now Virgin) but we pay for it (quite economically) and after nine years I would guess that spam constitutes about a third of our mail which isn't too bad.

Whatever provider you use, spammers will eventually get you either by fishing for your address from all sorts of sources or simply by random, computerised trials .... One thing to stress is that you should never answer dodgy e-mails especially to ask them to stop mailing you: that just confirms to them that you're a viable recipient for future mails ...

[Tormentil]

I've used Mailwasher Pro for several years now. Basically it allows you to preview see mail on your server before downloading to your email programme. I have two or three filters set up so it automatically deletes unwanted mail off my server.

[NickCantle]

Well, I was using a btinternet account for a while and I never had any problems with it. Then, my Mother suggested something rather excellent; Because I had registered my own domain, my mother set up a @Nicketcetc. com personal email. So as long as it ends in @Nicketcetc. com, anything that goes to that account will come to me. Say, for example I was to order something from Amazon, I'd put my email address into Amazon's checkout page as Amazonpurchases@Nicketcetc. com. The same with eBay; Ebaypurchases@Nicketctetc. com. So, when I receive junk offers or pornographic emails, if amazon passed my address on, I could tell because it would have been sent to me under the amazon address...If that makes sense. Plus, if you make sure you tick the box to say that you do not wish for them to pass your details on, and they do, you can get them into serious trouble. Luckily, I've not had any trouble yet, but I'm prepared so if it does happen, I'll know who it is passing my deets around.

Nick

PS; That's not my actual address, i changed it to stop scanners picking it up without registering, not that they would want it

[Gill Catton]

I have never had even one item of spam in my yahoo account nothing that I hadn't actually subscribed too I think its brilliant - however, I have no idea if it works with a blackcurrent

[DaiTheDragon]

Who is your isp for your Blackberry. They will often have an e.mail address for you.

Dai

[pressld2]

I'm with btinternet (or btopenworld as it's called now) mainly because I used to work for them before getting outsourced. They provide a spam filter on the account but I have to say it's not very reliable. Obvious spam still gets through and it occasionally blocks legitimate emails, even from people you've already told it are o.k. It moves anything it thinks is spam into a "bulk mail" folder and deletes it after seven days. But I find it best to regularly check this folder just in case which kind of defeats the object. It has even sent mail from my son at university to the bulk folder a couple of times

Things have improved recently. I used to receive between 200 and 250 spam emails per day but now it's averaging below 100. It's about 50% porn, 25% meds and the rest split between mortgage or loan offers, phishing emails, share price tips or other get-rich-quick schemes and what I would delicately describe as "masculine enhancement" products. I was starting to get an inferiority complex about those until I realised that my wife was getting them too!

Dave P.

[rlchew]

Originally Posted by pressld2

I'm with btinternet (or btopenworld as it's called now) mainly because I used to work for them before getting outsourced. They provide a spam filter on the account but I have to say it's not very reliable. Obvious spam still gets through and it occasionally blocks legitimate emails, even from people you've already told it are o.k. It moves anything it thinks is spam into a "bulk mail" folder and deletes it after seven days. But I find it best to regularly check this folder just in case which kind of defeats the object. It has even sent mail from my son at university to the bulk folder a couple of times

Things have improved recently. I used to receive between 200 and 250 spam emails per day but now it's averaging below 100. It's about 50% porn, 25% meds and the rest split between mortgage or loan offers, phishing emails, share price tips or other get-rich-quick schemes and what I would delicately describe as "masculine enhancement" products. I was starting to get an inferiority complex about those until I realised that my wife was getting them too!

Dave P.

I am with btinternet too and I agree that it is not 100% reliable in filtering out the rubbish. It is, however, manageable albeit annoying and thankfully I do not receive quite as many spam e-mails as you Dave although the content sounds very similar.

I am reassured that I am not the only one receiving "masculine enhancement" products .... my inferiority complex has also now disappeared now that I know I am not alone .

Richard