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Is it me, or is using Spamcop Email too much work?


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I'm still fairly new to this.. but I must say.. my spamcop email account is a hell of a lot of work to maintain, and/or a hell of a lot of work just to learn how the system works, and I'm no dummy.

My overall impression after nearly a month of using spamcop email is that the only thing that makes using spamcop any "better" than simply receiving the spam and deleting it is the vengeful joy of "narcing" it out (reporting). However, the thrill is wearing off, since ~5000 pieces of spam per week means hours looking through the "held mail" folder sorting out "good" email from junk. I feel that in essence, I'm still getting and having to look at just about every piece.

I'm doing quickreporting via the webmail interface, and I have the scri_pt for the "report spam" function enabled in OSX Mail, I've read all the faqs I can find, but I still don't feel I'm getting any closer to finding ways of making this a lower-maintenance, quicker, easier process.

Sorry.. I guess I'm venting, but before I think any more about bailing-out on spamcop, I hoped maybe someone might have some suggestions or tips for better use of the service?

Thanks to all.

-dave

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Although I may not be the best person to give you the right answer, I have found that the best way to use the website is to send and have the filtered e-mail forwarded back to you and have imap access to the spamcop.

I only go to the website to report whatever is left in the held mail folder, I clean the trash and and check the held mail folder content in OE logging to spamcop imap...I have had little or no false positives doing that, reporting from the held mail page gives you a second chance to confirm and check the spam before the final quick and delete reporting..

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after nearly a month of using spamcop email

Have you been whitelisting the false positives? If so, the list of good messages in the Held Mail folder should be diminishing. The first couple of months are the hardest becuase of this.

You don't need to report every spam and burn yourself out. Report only the most recent, or the most annoying to you. You don't even have to report it at all, just leave it in the held Mail box and it will go away eventually. Be careful though, a full Held Mail or Trash folder will slow webmail down quite a bit.

Basically, find a system that works for you. If you have other methods of removing your spam from your email that work for you, perhaps spamcop is not for you. Refunds are available if you follow that route. It is a personal choice after all.

Good luck

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Basically, find a system that works for you.  If you have other methods of removing your spam from your email that work for you, perhaps spamcop is not for you.  Refunds are available if you follow that route. It is a personal choice after all.

I'm not worried about refunds, nor the concept of whether I have a choice or not, I was merely interested in seeing if there were easier ways of using the system than I have figured out on my own thus far. To that point, your indication that an ignored held-mail folder will eventually purge itself is actually very useful to know, as I'd been looking all over for info on how long that folder holds its contents. (i had imagined that like some of my POP accounts, it would fill to the limit of the account space and then stop all incoming mail until it's cleared).

Otherwise, yes I have been whitelisting the false positives, but searching through the 5000 emails that accumulate in a week or the (500+ per day) to find the needles in the haystack is pretty tedious and time-wasting, especially given how slow the webmail interface can be if you let it display more than 20 per page. It seems like there's got to be another way

And dra007, I think you've just gone a little over my head. I have the main POP email account from my webhost forwarding everything to my spamcop account, and the filtered results are returned to another POP box that I check with OSX Mail. Is there something different you're doing when you say

I clean the trash and and check the held mail folder content in OE logging to spamcop imap..
Are you implying that I could be checking and deleting the contents of the held-mail folder without having to use the webmail interface? (like via OSX Mail?)... that could be good. Could you elaborate, please? It would be great to have this capability. It would also be great to be able to add an address to the whitelist with a scri_pt similar to the one that does the "report spam" thing from OSX Mail.

Anyway, thanks again for your suggestions.

-dave

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Are you implying that I could be checking and deleting the contents of the held-mail folder without having to use the webmail interface?

Exactly that, if you go to FAQ on e-mail setup, they will guide you through the relatively simple steps to set up an imap/spamcop account on your own client, I happen to use Outlook Express which deals realatively easy with imap, and I can drag files en masse between accounts without having to log into the webmail. When enough mail is accumulated an email confirmation from spamcop directs you to the held mail page which also bypasses the webmail and you can quickly check and report there...

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Are you implying that I could be checking and deleting the contents of the held-mail folder without having to use the webmail interface? (like via OSX Mail?)... that could be good. Could you elaborate, please?  It would be great to have this capability.

People with a Spamcop email account can use IMAP or POP to fetch their mail. IMAP has the significant advantage that you can manipulate the "Held Mail" folder directly. I use it primarily to drag the false negatives back if they squeak through the filters, but you could just as easily use it as your main way of reading the mail.

It would also be great to be able to add an address to the whitelist with a scri_pt similar to the one that does the "report spam" thing from OSX Mail.

I think that you will still have to do this via webmail or VER.

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Sorry.. I guess I'm venting, but before I think any more about bailing-out on SpamCop, I hoped maybe someone might have some suggestions or tips for better use of the service?

SpamCop may not be your cup of tea?

Ideally SpamCops filters should be keeping your inbox spam free with no false positives (i.e. all spam captured is spam). This is what happens for me and a great many others

Just a quick check of your VER folder and selecting "Quick Report and immediately trash" is usually all you have to do. Suggest you use "mole" reporting to stop spammers revenge attacking.

The first thing you should do is set your "Whitelist" I often have whole domains whitelisted (if not a common spammer return address like hotmail.com etc)

Also if you are finding one of the Filters too aggressive turn it off (like "dnsbl.sorbs.net") or uncheck it

Look at the headers of received email to see if any of SpamCops filters are picking it up and it will give you an idea of what's taking place

I usually full report spammers in an effort to remove their websites which I see as a better deterrent, but I have my laptop set up by my lounge chair and TV

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  • 2 weeks later...

Maybe it's just me, but I find that I get a lot less spam in the first place using my Spamcop account as my primary email account.

If you're really using a different (say, Earthlink or Yahoo or MSN or whatever) account and POPing it to a Spamcop account, then, yes, the only real difference is you can try to get some satisfaction by reporting the spam. Otherwise, these other services offer their own spam filtering, which may not work so well as Spamcop's, but it works.

So, I suggest getting rid of the other accounts altogether.

If that's not an option, you have to decide whether the reporting feature is worth the effort (I used it that way for a long time and thought it was).

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Sure, it takes some time to manage mail, but Spamcop gives you, the user, the control over ALL messages. There is no big brother or corporate IT department deciding what is and is not a legitimate message. Held Mail is just that, it is there for the user to review. In past months, I've picked up some critical, legitimate messages that have been trapped. Were it automatically canned, I would have missed some important business contacts. Based on experience, I have used the Spamcop settings to tailor score, blacklists, whitelists, etc. to work well. Compared to a previous, canned package from an antivirus vendor, Spamcop is a much richer package.

Here is how I use Spamcop with multiple machines and a PDA. Spamcop POPs incoming from my ISP. I mainly access SC Webmail from wired and wireless broadband connections. I also use IMAP to download either message headers or full text and attachments for off-line reading via my laptop (using Eudora 6.1) or PDA (Wi-Fi or GPRS connections).

I'm now confident that if I need to check for incoming in a hurry, I will get legitimate messages, with the junk and the in-between waiting until I have more time to review.

Thanks to all for making this happen!

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