Spam Filters

There are many definitions of spam, but one of the most useful ones is the following:

"Spam: unsolicited email, usually of a commercial nature."

Spam is the electronic version of junk mail, and has been around since the Internet was created. Spam filters are a way of filtering your email to remove unwanted mail based on a variety of criteria. You can block any sort of email, not just mail of a commercial nature. Blocked mail is deleted automatically - it does not even bounce back to the sender. These filters are quite flexible - some examples are provided after the instruction on how to add a spam filter below. All filters are cumulative.

Useful spam links:

• Six simple things you can do to prevent spam

• Alternate definition of spam

• Usenet definition of spam

To add a spam filter:

1. Click on the Spam filters link in the Mail Menu area.

2. Click on the required header field in the first drop-down list. These are the various fields in any email message.

3. Click on the required filter action in the second drop-down list. This action will act on the text entered in the third field.

   • equals - match the text exactly (whole words only). "Credit" will block "Credit".

   • matches regex - matches the text based on regular expression (regex) rules. Regular expressions are a powerful but complex area. You do not need to use regular expression filters for most circumstances. Refer to these two good introductory tutorials - Using Regular Expressions and Learning to Use Regular Expressions - for more information.

   • contains - match the specified text in any circumstance. "porn" will block "porn" and "pornography".

   • begins with - match the specified text when it is the beginning of a word. "porn" will block "porn" and "pornography" but not "teenporn".

4. Enter the filter text in the third field. This text is case sensitive.

5. Click on the Add button. Click on the Spam filters link to return to the Spam Filters window to confirm that it has been added.

Example:

To block all email from "john@paradise.net", enter: From, equals, john@paradise.net

To block all email from paradise.net, enter: From, contains, paradise.net

To block all references to pornography, enter: Any Header, contains, porn

Topics:

Deleting a spam filter