Thanks to those who pointed me in the direction of reading my mail offline as a way of confounding spammers. This way I can open up the mail for deletion and not risk detection. Very cool. I still get some spam, but not much; less even, perhaps. What’s tickling me is that I’m now getting requests to indicate that I’ve read their junk. Yeah, right. 
In a pig’s patoot.
Thanks again. 
How does that work, exactly?
Best wishes,
Jerry Hudson Hashabiah Harglebargle Hamburger Freeman
Well, Jerry, my setup works this way:
When I open my mail, only the last message I had read previously is open to view: no problem. The new messages below it have yet to be opened, so I go to “File” on the mail window (BTW, I have Outlook Express FWIW), and near the bottom of the list of choices is a “Work Offline” option. I leftclick that, and a wee window opens up and asks do I want to hang up the modem before working offline. I click “No”. The window disappears, and at the bottom right of my screen is a little icon thingy that indicates that I’m now working offline. Then I just open the ones I want to delete (I have to open them first; if there’s another way, I don’t know), and ZAP…spam obliteration, clean and safe. You know it’s working because all the illustrations show as red-X boxes or the like.
That done, I just go back to the mailbox “File” function, reopen that, click the same spot (the “Work Offline” option now has a checkmark to the left of it). and presto! I’m online again, and free to move about the cabin, as it were.
Hope this works for you.
Death and oblivion to the Spambots!
I think in Outlook Express, you can just right-click on the e-mail you want to delete, and press “Delete” on the menu that comes up when you right-click. You needn’t open the mail, at all, nor work offline.
I could be wrong, though. That’s how I do it, at home, also on Outlook Express. I think. It’s sort of one of those things you actually have to be doing in order to tell someone how you’re doing it. . .
You know how to set up spam filters, too, don’cha?
–aaron
I just realised that one can initiate working offline prior to opening the mailbox; my “File” option on the main window has it, too. 
Thanks; I’ll give that a try just for variety’s sake. I don’t know a lot about setting up spam filters…but I do love the satisfaction of giving 'em no satisfaction in any case. ZAP. ZAP.
Aaaaahhhhh. Bliss.
Dude, I think you’re making this harder on yourself than need be. I’m tellin’ ya, right-click, delete message, all done.
Set up some simple spam filter rules (you can have any message with specified words sent directly to your Trash file, for instance). I think you go under Tools, to Filters. I’ll check when I get home, and see if I can set you up.
I set up a few filters that automatically trash messages with certain words in their subject line (you knw the words I mean) and which virtually no non-spammer would use, and spam all but disappeared.
You’re probably right, H. As it is, I’m very lucky; I only get 2-3 spams a day, so not a lot of time wasted.
How do you get around those which come in in html format? The filter “with specific words” as it looks to me does not work with those and they seem to get more and more, very annoying at times. I use outlook if this is important. Thanks a lot
Brigitte
I’m confused. Are you saying someone else can tell whether you opened your email if you do it while online?
Tony
YES
Ever click on an e-mail message and ‘things’ load from a remote website?
GOTCHA !!
Do you know if your ISP or web host service uses Spam Assassin (many of them do)? If so, you should be able to set up just one rule in your spam filters to catch almost all spam, of any sort.
If you do have access to Spam Assassin, you can try setting up your filter as explained at this site:
http://oncampus.richmond.edu/is/network/spam/spamfilter.html
and see if that works for you. . .
I’m not expert, though, so remember my advice is probably worth what you just paid for it. Perhaps an expert on the board will pipe up . . .
Anyway, we get virtually no spam now at home, which is nice.
Good luck!
Aaron
Thanks a lot. I will find out what my provider offers on spam filter from their side and check my outlook spam-rules over again, I must have overseen something important.
Brigitte
I am considering this…
looks like people who haven’t sent you an email before have to respond once to a query whether they are real people or despicalble spam bots.
Anyone have experience with that sort of thing?
Hi Folks,
maybe I’m missing something but I use hotmail and if I get spam I click “Block Sender” I got an e mail recently with an infected attachment, can’t remember the virus name, hotmail detected it. One other advantage is that if I reformat my PC I don’t lose my kept messages. Of course there could be other disadvantages to hotmail that I’m not aware of.
Cheers, Mac
One of the most important things is to shut off the preview pane in Outlook or Outlook Express. Then none of the emails are opened until you click on them.
I filter into my inbox only messages from people in my address book. The rest go into a different folder. I look at the message headings in case one might be from someone I haven’t yet added. Then I hold down Control and the A key. This sellects all the emails. Hit the delete key and they are all gone.
Hotmail is by far LESS safe than Outlook. But then again, it is all Microsoft…
The major disadvantages to hotmail are that you MUST be online to use it. (ie you can’t fool the spammers by going offline, so any virus, worm, program or whatever that is in the email is run.)
As well, the block sender thing is 90% useless. Most spammer’s return addresses are NOT real. ie they send from another address. The block sender only blocks the address listed as the reply-to address which doesn’t help much.
Also you are limited to 200 addresses and 200 domains (useless because a lot of the spammers have @msn or @ hotmail domains, or others that are very common. So if you block those domains, you are blocking friends)
I use hotmail too, but I have my account set at exclusive. This means that unless the email address is in my address book, the email is put in a junk-mail box. This is supposed to be more secure, but I still don’t open these emails. I simply empty the folder on a regualr basis.
Finally, I have recnetly changed my hotmail address because none of this slowed down the 50+ spam a day I was getting. Bottom line: NEVER give out an email address online unless you want spam. Once you tell a website (radio station, online games, less acceptable venues, etc.) that either isn’t VERY secure, or is less than scrupulous ( or trustworthy) your email address, they generally sell it to spammers. Or use it themselves.
NEVER REPLY to a spam message.
Yes, but only from the mailing list admin side. If you are on mailing lists and want to stay on them, make sure the software can handle them, and that you can whitelist sender addresses yourself. Ways it can go wrong:
Software sends challenge mail to list address, this is recognized as a “bounce” (address not reachable), filtered out by mailing list software and presented the list admin. No mailing list admin (remember, many lists are provided for free by people in their spare time etc.) will be happy to have to jump through whichever hoops these blocking software providers invent just that others can use their free service. On the lists I co-admin, we sent out a warning pointing out the problem, and from now on, these messages will be treated as normal bounces and the person eventually unsubscribed from the list.
Software sends challenge mail to the sender of the list mail, i.e. every list member who posts a message to the list. This is inacceptably rude and only happens if the software doesn’t recognize mailing lists at all. I haven’t seen this before, but I was told it has happened on other lists. Again, this should result in at least unsubscribing the person using this blocking software.
Remember, both scenarios can be prevented if the software is good. I am not sure how I would react if people I want to contact per mail were protected by such blocking software. I probably would think “Oh, this person just does not want to talk to me” and not response to the challenge email. This is especially true if they would be the ones doing business and earning money with me.
Sonja
I use Netscape’s email reader. My filters first pull off the Lists I belong to (like “Woodenflute”) into appropriate folders for later reading.
I then filter based on the message TO: field. If it’s specifically addressed to my actual email address, I send it to the SPAM folder. This catches those that use a a long list or BCC: (blind carbon copy).
I use the free version of ZoneAlarm to Stop All Internet Activity (going off-line), while sorting through the spam. Thus, no web access for pictures being forced on me, and no being logged as a valid email address to the accessed site.
Kevin Krell
Wrong. This computer stuff is still all discovery to me, yet. If you’re working offline before you access the mailbox, you can’t receive new mail. Duh.