Email and spam filter question

[Chops]

Hi,

I've just registered with idnet For the email option I haven't asked for the spam filter, have I made a mistake?

I'm always careful who I give my email address out to but with my current ISP I get spam, usually shares type stuff and Viagra type stuff and I guess I must have given my email address out at some point to someone who has passed it on. If I do have to give my email address out for any reason to a 'dodgy or unknown' company I give my MSN email out because I'm not bothered if that gets clogged up with spam.

Anyway is it worth the £4 for the idnet spam filter option or, from experience, would people say it's not worth it.

TIA.

[Rik]

My primary email is on my own domain, hosted by 1&1. Despite the spam filters there, loads gets through. Though I only give my address here out rarely, it is in daily use and has yet to receive any spam. Start off without the filter, then if you need it, you can add it later (though I think that may involve a new email address, iirc).

[Lance]

I've not revceived any spam on my idnetfreemail non filtered address at all, dispite this being my primary address.

If you don't want to pay the £4 a month for the filtered address, you could try a software spamfilter on your machine. I use outlook 2003's spam filter and it seems to do a good job. The only downside of this is that the emails are actually downloaded before being marked junk, but this shouldn't be a problem.

[cavillas]

You could always try giving your email address as <something> at <somewhere> dot com  where possible.  This stops email sniffing software finding the address.  Not possible with forms however.
Tip courteousy of Simon (IDNET)

[DorsetBoy]

Or you could use a spam filter on your system.

This one is free==============SPAMEXPERTS

[MoHux]

FWIW I only use the 'freemail' addy x3 on OExpress, and have only ever had one spam email from the 3 addresses (no added filters).   

[drummer]

Give the Mozilla Thunderbird free email client a bash and see if it works for you:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird

I also use Mailwasher for when I'm really suspicious:

http://www.mailwasher.net

The free version only works with one POP account though, but it's still useful.