I use Eudora Mail and am using it to filter incoming messages for spam. EM filters about 90% to 95% of my incoming traffic and dumps it into my trash. Occasionally, the filters snag a legitimate message, and so I wade through the list of spams before deleting them.

Is there a better way? Are add-on products able to do a better job? Has anyone found ways to repel spam or nuke it upon arrival?

I don't know that there is a better way. I set filters by the senders or receivers address but spammers change these so often it doesn't do much good. The subject is a good field to filter when a virus with a common subject such as "I love you" comes out.

Outlooks auto-filtering program needs some tweaking to use it. Many of the keywords it triggers off of are common to us and could trash valid messages. Below is a sample.

Body contains "money back "
Body contains "cards accepted"
Body contains "extra income"
Subject contains "!" AND Subject contains "$"
Subject contains "!" AND Subject contains "free"
Body contains ",000" AND Body contains "!!" AND Body contains "$"
Body contains "for free?"
Body contains "for free!"
Body contains "Guarantee" AND (Body contains "satisfaction" OR Body contains "absolute")
Body contains "$"
Subject contains "$$"
Body contains "$$$"
Body contains "order now!"
Body contains "money-back guarantee"
Body contains "100% satisfied"
From contains "sales@"
Body contains "check or money order"

I'm using many of these search terms, too. The best ones are "$", and "free". I saved and reviewed a month's worth of messages and didn't find a single case where "$" appeared in the subject line of a legitimate message.

Other filter terms:
Body contains "remove from future mailings"
Body contains "unsubscribe"
Body or subject contains "debt consolidation"
Body or subject contains "register to win"
Body or subject contains "rates have never been lower"
Body or subject contains "best insurance rates"
Body or subject contains "national TV"
Body or subject contains "viagra"
Body or subject contains "lose weight"
Body or subject contains "enhancement" <plus names of various private body parts>
Body or subject contains "university diploma"

I also use all the the names of repeat pests and all dirty words I learned in middle school.

When you use the microsoft filter and tell it to delete items with adult content - does it put it in the delete file or does it completely remove it from the system? I've been having trouble with pornographic spam. Our IT guy just came by and set up the filters and also ran a program called, "ad-ware" to find all cookies that had attached themselves without my permission. There was a suspicious cookie that was not clearly identifiable. The others were clearly from advertising pop up boxes.

I use Ad Aware at home, and I also use Panicware's pop-up stopper. I get maybe one spam message per month.

I use Postini at home. It does a good job of separating the "junk" from the legitimate messages. They have a website at www.postini.com

I'm kind of surprised you are using Outlook since that seems to be used so often by viruses to spread their havoc to everyone on the Outlook address list. (Or is it just Outlook Express that is vulnerable?)

Richard

"Viagra"

Ad Ware is Ok but Spybot is better. It finds a number of cookies and Popups that Adware does not. Its a German product and was developed by computer science students at University of Dortmund

You can download it FREE at patrick.kolla.de/spyboy.html

Be sure to click on the British flag for the english version.

Here is a spam article in PC Mag.

Why is it called Spam? I keep seeing the Monty Python skits but can't make the tie-in.

Steve- This article gets the mystery out of the can and squarely onto your plate.

Thanks, it does explain it. Now for something completely different...