Are Computers Color Blind?

Discussion in 'Software' started by Kay Three, Jun 11, 2010.

  1. Kay Three

    Kay Three Private E-2

    Instead of simply opening Outlook Express and allowing my email to download directly from my ISP, I go to their site and review the mail headers on their server and delete everything there that I don't like the looks of. By following this procedure I have convinced myself that I have reduced my chances of unwantingly collecting any of the slimy things that prowl the web. A while back, my ISP changed to SquirlMail. Now login includes "entering the text you see in the image above". It is highly unusual for me to ever get it right the first time, or many times even the second. (My personal record is 24!) Often, a portion of the text will be out of sight beyond the borders of the box, so you have to guess at what the text may be. Other times you guess whether the character is an oh or a zero, or a one or an ell. But the one that really gives me problems is when the background and the characters are nearly the same shade of red. There are other color combinations that are close but the red one is unbelievable. I know why they have security measures like this but their paranoia is bordering lousy customer service. Now that we know my thoughts on this subject, it would be interesting to hear some intelligent thoughts on this matter. Thanks, K.
     
    Kay Three, Jun 11, 2010
    #1
  2. Earthling

    Earthling Interplanetary Geek

    First suggestion would be to autoforward everything to a googlemail account. The spam filter there is highly effective.

    Second thought would be to install Mailwasher. Used to be free for a single address but haven't checked it out for a while. Gets more effective the longer you use it.

    Third thought is why the heck use webmail at all other than when away from base rolleyes
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 12, 2010
    Earthling, Jun 11, 2010
    #2
  3. Kay Three

    Kay Three Private E-2

    Thanks Earthling for considering and responding to my post. My 'Duh' moments seem to be coming much more often then in years past. "why the heck use webmail at all other than when away from base". I like the sound of that but I'm not having any luck expounding on my own. I would greatly appreciate any help you would care to offer. K.
     
    Kay Three, Jun 11, 2010
    #3
  4. Earthling

    Earthling Interplanetary Geek

    Well I have suggested Mailwasher, which does more or less what you are doing manually. It looks at the headers on the server and sorts the good from the bad. The bad can be dimissed en bloc whilst still on the server. Give it a try.

    I used to use it myself, but found gmail to be the best answer.
     
    Earthling, Jun 12, 2010
    #4
  5. DavidGP

    DavidGP MajorGeeks Forum Administrator - Grand Pooh-Bah Staff Member

    Hi

    I would not think too much about headers and you disecting them at source alot as it takes time and to be honest and as someone who both at home and in work gets around 200+ emails a week I could not aford to look at headers unless as in this week an important email was missing and tracing the route via the header allowed us to find an issue in a filter used on Exchange.

    Mailwasher is great (just DO NOT allow it to bounce emails back as this is just like saying to the spammer, hey this email address is real, come spam me more) but also Cactus Spam Filter is good.

    I tend to more allow the spam filters on my email accounts to do their thing and Gmail and Hotmail/Live do a great job, you just need to also if using a client like Outlook/Outlook Express/Windows Live Mail/Thunderbird to use the rules to weed out specific words and phrases and have them deleted at source which is from the ISP server.

    Well its now as I posted above alot more secure than it used to be and in Hotmail, Gmail they have really good spam filters in place, they wont get all but they do allow rules based manual user options to filter out more spam from your inbox, they also as well as allow you to read email online, allow client based download of emails so you can employ an app like Earthling posted.

    But in the end dont take it too seriously as I never have in the many years on the internet as its what it is spam to be deleted and forgotten about, delete and never open any attachments unless you 100% know the sender and even then scan it with an Antivirus app.
     
    DavidGP, Jun 12, 2010
    #5

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