Escaping spam

Devrij · 11 Oct 2013 at 19:32

For years I have lived a spam-free existence, but somewhere, on some site, my details got out. For the last few months I have been bombarded by all sorts of single and lonely, platinum credit card, etc spam, and it's getting worse.

My gmail account is linked to everything I do, so I'm loathe to drop it and move to a new address, and waging a war of new filters and unsubscribing where I can futile. What can I do to stop it?! I miss my spam-free life!

Devrij · 11 Oct 2013 at 19:46

Oh yeah, I know my email address is out there now. What I'm asking is if there is a way to shut Pandora's box.

Devrij · 11 Oct 2013 at 19:54

In theory, gmail does, but it doesn't really get the idea when I tell it THIS IS SPAM! So essentially there is no magic bullet here? I suppose that means I either continue to fight the good fight, or else start a new address and move aaaaall my accounts over.

Devrij · 11 Oct 2013 at 20:00

FoxEye said:
Spam is inevitable. Resistance is futile.

But I was doing so well! This reminds me of playing resident evil when it first came out, and getting really far, then saving right before a boss fight when I had no ammo left. One small mistake you just can't take back, and trying so hard, yet knowing you can never win.

Devrij · 11 Oct 2013 at 20:15

billysielu said:
I have my own domain.

Then if you give it to ocuk, you can use [email protected], then if you get nigerian princes emailing it you know where the problem is and you can blackhole it.

A few times I've found which companies sell my details.

This looks like the best method. So do you forward them all to one mailbox for ease of use? Are they easy to manage? And how do I go about getting my own domain?

Devrij · 11 Oct 2013 at 20:27

billysielu said:
Yeah it's super easy, you set up a mailbox (don't give it out) and use that as "catch all".

http://www.fasthosts.co.uk/email-hosting/standard-email/

100mb mailbox? :/

Devrij · 11 Oct 2013 at 20:41

SlyReaper said:
I recently started filtering emails by the word "unsubscribe". It's fantastic - I get almost no spam now.

What about stuff you want to stay subscribed to?

Devrij · 11 Oct 2013 at 21:17

Energize said:
This is the best way, only costs a few pounds a year for a domain name and by default any email sent to your domain name regardless of the actual address used will go to your designated inbox so there's no need to create multiple email accounts!

Oh that's cool, so as above, you would just plonk [email protected] in without having to create [email protected]? But you could see which address each email was sent to?

Devrij · 12 Oct 2013 at 10:31

It's pretty clear that the stuff I'm getting is bot generated, so afraid not (no unsubscribe button either

) I'm definitely going to start using the "+whatever" tip when signing up to new sites though