Email help

[Jayne]

Hi,

I get a lot of email to do with the business, twice now I have opened strange emails full of codes (Not in my spam folder) which causes my computer to send out bulk junk mail to others, my network provider then thinks it is me and sends me email, saying they would cut off my service and it takes ages to sort out. Is there any way of telling which these emails are without opening them. My anti-virus doesn't show them as a threat.

Thank You

Jayne

 

[RockLinks]

Hi Jayne,

What anti-virus protection do you use?

 

[Jayne]

Norton internet security. Aol spyware and that stinger thing.

Jayne

 

[RockLinks]

Well Norton aint the best to be honest in my experience. Have you had a quick virus scan? you also could do with some software that scans incoming emails. I reccomend Panda Internet security it rocks

 

[Jayne]

It has email scans and fire wall, but these ones seem to get through! It usually pops a thing up saying do you know who sent it, but it says that on most emails I get, I have to open them incase it's from someone asking about my shop sale.


Jayne

 

[Juvanescence]

If you wish I can put a company in touch with you. They should solve 99% of all your spam or malicious emails.

 

[Rob Holmes]

Hi Jayne,

Sounds like 2 problems..

1. You're using AOL

2. You're using Norton.

I rate neither very highly!

Zonelabs Security Suite has an interesting function that works with your outlook express. If someone has emailed you for the first time it doesn't deliver it straight to you but emails them back to confirm they are real and then when they confirm it delivers the email to to and they never have to confirm again.

Now I can't use this option for my business and I don't recommend it if you are more desperate to receive emails than recieve spam but if you are more interested in removing spam from your inbox and don't mind if someones first email is delayed then it could be a good option.

Rob

 

[Jayne]

Hi,

Thank everyone! To put a new anti-virus in my computer, do i just subscribe to one or do I have to buy a disk to download it in. And are they expensive, I got the norton one free with my computer. I haven't had much trouble yet with AOL, but then again i've not seen any other. All the rubbish that gets send to my email always seems to comes from yahoo.com, so I will not swap to them, they seem dodgy!

Jayne

 

[Rob Holmes]

To put a new anti-virus in my computer, do i just subscribe to one or do I have to buy a disk to download it in.

You can download most from their websites if you have broadband - Zonelabs security Suite is around £40 I think for the first year then it drops to £20 for subsequent year - you won't need anything else if you have this.

http://www.zonelabs.com

Hope this helps,

Rob

 

[Jayne]

Thanks, i'll have a look at some.

Thank You

Jayne

 

[Mac Yeti]

Hi Jayne,

I'd recommend AVG for anti virus
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5

and Sygate Personal Firewall
http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm

Both of these are free and do the job as good as anything you'd pay for.

I'd also recommend never clicking on attachments if you don't know where they've come from 8)

Oh, and I'd also give ad-aware a run to!
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

Cheers,

Jill

 

[10Yetis]

Welcome along Mac Yeti!

 

[mumper]

Are you two Yetis in any way related?

 

[RockLinks]

The only one i have ever known to work is Panda its brilliant. You can buy it and download it from www.pandasoftware.com

 

[10Yetis]

Maybe :lol:

Indeed we are... Jill is the hairy design arm of 10Yetis. I have been trying to encourage her to come visit the forum but you know what these arty types are like, always fashionably late!

 

[RockLinks]

Maybe this forum aint good enough :lol:

 

[Mac Yeti]

No, no, I've been washing my hair! It's inevitable it would take me some time to arrive

 

[Jayne]

Hi,

Thank you Jill, I'm going to have a go at these. I may as well try the freebies first than paying for them

Thanks to everyone

Jayne

 

[Proximitum]

As just a word of caution you should be careful about installing multiple versions of AV software, as I have seen all sorts of problems with peoples laptops and pcs after they tried to install various AV and spyware software.

I would recommend that you make sure you do a clean uninstall of previous AV sofwtare before installing new software.

 

[Deleted member 3454]

I would recommend that you make sure you do a clean uninstall of previous AV sofwtare before installing new software.

The same applies to Firewalls - you shouldn't run more than one of each at any time.

 

[Jayne]

Thank You

Jayne

 

[APRogers]

A simple way to deal with Spam, if you own your own domain and can configure it, is to use different addresses for different things:

1. One address on your web site, which will be trawled by email harvesting spam hunters.
2. A different address on your business cards
3. Different addresses for specific promotions or sales
4. Different addresses for signing up to things on the internet

This last one is especially useful because, when you get spam, you can see who sold their contact list or has crap security!

The principal is exactly the same as marketing promotion codes that you see on flyers and in magazines. It's up to you then whether each one is a proper mailbox which you can check or if it just gets forwarded to a spam trap account, like Hotmail.

If you'd like to know more, contact me by PM or email. If you use the later, you'll see what I mean!

 

[Ozzy]

Hi Jayne,
I can also give you a recommendation to try Thunderbird as a mail client. A lot of scripts and viruses are written to target Windows users with Outlook as their mail client - you may find Thundredbird more secure. Its what I use!

Hope this helps,
Richard