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Spam - VM's filter is useless!

timbo42
Dialled in

I'm so sick & tired of VM's utterly useless Spam filter! VM is happy to allow any messages about Viagra, Bitcoin scams, phishing attacks through, but blocks many real e-mails! I've had 20 scam e-mails in the last 3 days trying to get me to renew Norton anti-virus (which I don't have). I mark them as Spam each time, but the system never learns!

As I said the system also blocks proper e-mails sometimes - e-mails from a Dutch company I deal with are always blocked, no matter how many times I mark them as not Spam. I even had an individual e-mail from a UK company acknowledging an order classed as spam.

Its useless, and its always been useless, and it never gets better! I wouldn't mind if the system ever learnt - isn't that what modern sophisticated systems are supposed to do???

133 REPLIES 133

Hi ,

Glad to here it , And help out .

welsh1lad

 

SPAM EMAIL WITH ATTACHMENTS- paperclip symbol shown next to file size.

If the email shows a "paperclip", when it opened, there it will show perhaps 2 attachments-the dangerous ones, the ones with more than one attachment are rare but probably are more dangerous to open and carry something such as images , links, malware, code, exe files etc designed to compromise computers.

So be careful opening emails with attachments indicated by the paperclip symbol, even if html/images is switched off, these attachments can show if you forward the email they can open and one click could be dangerous.

see

Switch Between HTML And Plain Text Emails In Thunderbird - gHacks Tech News

alf28

 

 

OK  I have finally managed to cure this at long last.  It works on Micosoft Edge. 

SETTINGS

COOKIES AND SITE PERMISSION

COOKIES AND DATA STORED

BLOCK

ADD

I hope this works for you good luck 


@jeanharrett wrote:

OK  I have finally managed to cure this at long last.  It works on Micosoft Edge. 

SETTINGS

COOKIES AND SITE PERMISSION

COOKIES AND DATA STORED

BLOCK

ADD

I hope this works for you good luck 


I'm afraid you've lost me there. What exactly were you curing?
The conversation has been about spam getting through to our email clients.

 

BROWSER SETTING-worth a visit-privacy- spam emails

AN interesting post about edge settings, but applies to all browsers, check the settings as they can change, mine have  but I have reset the browser recently.

I am aware recently some of my spam email  may be generated by websites collecting data from searches, had this recently  with bing sending me property for sale in my area which went to the spam folder. Searches can be monitored by the search engine, ISP etc and the data could  be sold to third parties, should not happen due to data protection but best to be on the safe side, often websites have permissions that if ticked allow your data to third parties, I always untick these but it is not easy to be aware of all these settings which may default to the least private settings in some cases.

The settings in most browsers can be used to minimise this, I "block third part cookies", delete cookies on exit, ads can be blocked.

Look at cookies and stored data, I just deleted all my many cookies, there is a privacy setting also, where  browsing data can be cleared, and I select block trackers (balanced) and send do not track requests. Note that cookies are required for websites to work properly, so not wise to block them.

My antivirus also blocks tracking and ads in the browser and list the trackers, most websites use trackers/analytics but make sure the extension/addon is switched on.

see  web browser - Can cookies reveal my email address? - Information Security Stack Exchange

alf28

VMCopperUser
Wise owl

Not so much a NECRO here as perhaps more of a ZOMBIE ... Thread is not that old, but not new either, meh...

I set up a lot of "Filter Rules" to compensate for what VM Has left out.

I like the site haveibeenpwned https://haveibeenpwned.com/ , it does a search through their list to see if your email (and details) have been exposed.  Do bear in mind that unless your getting TARGETED email - As in - it has your real details about you, then generally most can be ignored.

The filters are not great, as others said.  In fact some things inside specific HTML wrappers avoid the filters on inbound emails but - it has to be funny becuase it's true - you get blocked if you try to forward it to a spambuster group/email because it will flag as spam.

I find that in my filters (For wifes email, because she must be on every target list in Russia, China, India, and America) you should use no more than 25-30 conditions per rule.  If you have more conditions than that then set up more rules.

I also use some filter rules in my email client (IMAP client, so as long as she unless she see's it instantly then my client cleans it up - something you could consider).

Most of the rules work OKAY, some just don't work at all.  The REGEX rules are hit and miss  (escape sequences I guess).

 

----
I do not work for VM, but I would. It is just a Job.
Most things I say I make up and sometimes it's useful, don't be mean if it's wrong.
I would also make websites for them, because the job never seems to require the website to work.

Obviously, a lot of people are still getting lots of spam but since I installed the filter suggested some months ago by Forum Member Dave, I have received virtually none. I have an ntlworld.com address.

Thanks ahrbee

Glad to hear this worked for you 

Do you have the link at all or help that was given 

Gareth_L

Thanks boothy99

That's very much appreciated

Gareth_L