[NA] Email spam protection

[Let'sgoflying!]

I use yahoo mail.
The email ads are getting, woo - out of control.

I access my email from multiple computers, 2 i-devices.

What is a good spam barrier?
(Bonus, if free)

Does the spam-blocking app need to be installed on each device?

 

[asicer]

I use yahoo mail.

From a web browser, click the gear icon on the right side of the screen and select "More Settings".


On the left side, select "Security and privacy".


Add the offending sender domains. If you don't have Y+ and are limited to 3, start adding to "Blocked Addresses".

 

[Albany Tom]

I use yahoo, too, and just from the web interface. I haven't had much of a problem. The only spam I get is from companies I've had some sort of connection with. Is there any chance your email address is published somewhere? Either on a social media site, company site, or some organization you belong to? Asking because if it's published I think it's unavoidable that you'll get targeted spam.

When I do get spam, I just use the yahoo 'spam' button and future things like it go away. Yahoo is doing something right for me, because I know in general something like 95% of all email IS spam, and I don't see that truly random stuff.

 

[DaleB]

If your email provider does not decently filter email, it may be time to switch.

I spent the last 30 years managing email systems for myself and others. Spam went from an anomaly to a nuisance to an onslaught. When I finally pulled the figurative plug in my last remaining mail server, I was rejecting probably 90% or better of attempted email delivery. That’s a guess… it may have been as high as 99%, I didn’t keep track. I’d spent countless hours curating rules to reject and filter spam. It was a never-ending exercise (stopped being a game a decade or two ago) of whack-a-mole.

For reasons I don’t care to go into, I recently moved email for my own domain to iCloud. They do a decent job of filtering. So does Google. Even Microsoft.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

The most effective way to combat spam is to take anything with the word "Unsubscribe" or the phrase "Manage Email Preferences" and stuff them into a folder. There may be mailing lists that you do want in your inbox that have those words in them, but you just create a higher priority rule to keep those in the inbox.

That technique has saved email for me. Prior to starting to do that, I was getting so much spam in all my accounts that email was practically useless.

 

[FORANE]

I use yahoo mail.
The email ads are getting, woo - out of control.

Yahoo offers a good quantity of free email storage, but with that comes a good quantity of spam, and advertising barrage. I abandoned Yahoo many years ago due to the ads rendering their homepage unusable. I went to Ustart for a homepage that offers customizable media feeds without any ads. I went to Gmail for free mail without ads and a pretty good spam barrier. The free version of Gmail limits storage to 15gb. If you require more storage without a subscription, you can setup your Yahoo account to backup your Gmail automatically.

 

[JOhnH]

Is there any chance your email address is published somewhere? Either on a social media site, company site, or some organization you belong to? Asking because if it's published I think it's unavoidable that you'll get targeted spam.

I received FOUR security breach letters in 2024 and one so far this year.

Each one has said that one or all of the following were compromised: Email address, SS# Birthdate, Mother's maiden name.

Each one also offered me one year free credit monitoring. I wonder if five concurrent subscriptions of credit monitoring is 5 times better than one subscription. I signed up for the first two offers but started getting more email from them trying to upsell me on more expensive subscriptions that offered things like identity and credit restoration. I do get emails from them saying that my information has been found on the dark web and suggesting I change my passwords.

I tried blocking or marking as spam individual emails but I might get a dozen spam emails with the same message but different "from" addresses. At one point I noticed that just about every spam email came from a ".gmail" account, so I set up a filter to send those to a personal folder that I checked periodically. After a month of checking I found no legitimate emails so I sort of slacked off on checking until my BIL called and asked why I didn't respond to his email about the death of a long time family friend. Oops.

I think the best you can do is change your passwords regularly, but that is really a pain when you access email from several devices. As is two step verification.

 

[AvNavCom]

You might want to consider DuckDuckGo's email forwarding extension. It will forward stuff to your Yahoo email address (if you want to continue using that one) but strips out all trackers and lets you create one-off disposable email addresses for all those website sign-ins that then promptly sell your email address. At this point though, your current Yahoo address may be unsalvageable unless the spam can be blocked at the server level.

Regardless of all their other issues (I miss you, young "Do no evil" Google!), I have to say that my Gmail account has been absolutely spectacular at blocking spam. The only emails I get are from companies with whom I've actually done business. It's very rare for me to see an actual spam email in my inbox.

 

[Albany Tom]

I think the best you can do is change your passwords regularly, but that is really a pain when you access email from several devices. As is two step verification.

One thing that you probably already do but is worth mentioning - don't use the same password for different accounts. That may sound obvious, but it's actually pretty common for people to re-use passwords, and then when one password is compromised the bad guys get access to other things.

Next, also goes without saying, for anything financial or that has a financial impact, make sure to use multi-factor.

Oh, and when you get email, don't click on the links. Even if you know the person.

 

[robin ardoin]

I also use Yahoo mail. True spam messages that get through are only a handful in a day. The amount that get diverted to the spam folder, behind the scenes, is staggering. My wife’s Yahoo mail doesn’t seem to filter like mine. She gets probably near 100/day spam messages that get to her inbox. Security setting differences? IDK.