Forum Melt Down

[restorer]

If you belong to a Yahoo Group, don't post. There seems to be a melt down in progress. I posted to a group and it delayed the post for several minutes and within one minute it reposted several times. No, I didn't screw up. I hit the send key once and exited the group so it's something in Yahoo. I guess it's nice to be on a smaller, independent forum with a lot of personal input by the list mom's.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

im in the pellet users group there , i noticed its getting spammed to a fair thee well, i hope they get it straight as its a good forum

 

[webbie]

Those services are nice, but I hate to build a house on someone elses foundation! If they decide to change, charge for it, go out of biz, etc....there goes the forum!

I guess the historian in me likes to have control and backups/archives so we never lose all these educational words.

 

[restorer]

Those services are nice, but I hate to build a house on someone elses foundation! If they decide to change, charge for it, go out of biz, etc....there goes the forum!

I guess the historian in me likes to have control and backups/archives so we never lose all these educational words.

Lately even the guild forum I belong to that very carefully guards its borders has been assaulted. I get the Big "Y" is in a major defensive position, or the ultimate target. Gee, seems bigger is not even lose to being equal. Guess that's why I am self employed.

 

[Gooserider]

Well I refuse to do anything with Yahoo, as I find them to be incredibly invasive - I've also heard that they seem to have (or at least used to) some kind of semi-incestuous relationship with the spammers.

Of course being off of Yahoo doesn't guarantee a lack of spam either - The LPMA has a phpBBS board and we are constantly getting spammed - mostly obscene pix sites and pharmaceuticals - The spammers don't seem to get the message that just because we don't think such should be illegal, does NOT mean that we want to hear about them!

I have moderator powers over there and I get tired of having to constantly delete such crap... I'm impressed that we get so little of it here - what's the secret? (I will say that I don't think our webmaster has put in as many mods as he could to make the spammers lives harder)

Gooserider

 

[webbie]

BTW, on a related topic I am really digging gmail - it allows you to have all your mail in one place (it checks all your accounts where ever they are) and it does about a 100% job on Spam - no false positives or negatives. Considering that I have had the same email addresses for 12 years, you can imagine how much spam I get (about 100 a day even with spam filters on the server).

So gmail rules..... if anyone needs "invited" for an account, send me a pm or reply here with the address you want an invite sent to (google still requires that you be invited to join).

This forum is somewhat spam proof - the developers keep ahead - or at least even with - the powers that spam. First thing is they have to register.....I browse through the registrations now and then and remove users that seem like they might be spammers - have not had a complaint yet, so they must not be real members! There is also a blacklist and whitelist setup that auto-updates. The anti-spam community has a pretty good idea of the servers where spam comes from.....

Yeah, yahoo is a bit too commercial for me - I don't trust them. For now, I have at least a bit of trust in google, although I don't do anything illegal anyway through my email - so unlike Enron and the Government I don't have to worry when they get my records!

 

[NewtownPA]

How much does gmail cost?

 

[webbie]

Free......
So are most of the other google services, like free online Documents, Calendars, Spreadsheets, etc.
You may have to put up with a coupdl words of text advertising here and there, but I don't even notice it.

 

[Rhone]

I've been wondering about hotmail, and Microsoft for that matter. I have a hotmail account, and called Microsoft up for tech support once and they asked for my e-mail address. I was getting 2-3 spams a week. After that call I got 186/week all computer related. The next time I needed help I was smart, I created a new hotmail account just for them, gave it to only them on my next call and soon received tons of junk e-mail shortly afterward to that account. Microsoft sells you out for sure. And, what's up with their hotmail junk e-mail filter? They need to fire the person involved or Microsoft is in bed with spammers. Their junk-email detects on average 7 junk spams to my account/week and lets 225 pass as valid. Worse, it's accurate to about 100% of wrongly flagging valid e-mails as spam. It's pretty bad when I use the spam folder to find my valid e-mails and my inbox I skim through the hundreds it let through just in case anything is valid. Isn't that backwards? It's pure blantant spam too, like Viagra typed correctly, and "Offshore Pharmacy", and "University of Phoenix", "Credit Card Debt", "Re-Finance", "Re Mortgage" I mean come on, how does even the simplest detectors fail to detect those words they're even spelled correctly. Also, why would spammers spell the words correctly to Hotmail accounts unless they struck a deal with Microsoft and knew hotmail won't block their particular spam so they don't have to disguise anything. Funny you mention gmail, I opened an account yesterday and trying them out.

 

[webbie]

Hotmail is blocked by many ISPs....and is on other blacklists. They ruined what was once the leader in free mail services.

I suggest that no one use it for anything with any importance - and that usually means everything!

Whether it is MS selling you out or their lax security, the bottom line is that you cannot trust them....and trust is really what these companies (google, etc.) are selling.

 

[drizler]

For the most part I like Yahoo. I dropped my Westelcom email account when they decided to add to their profits by extorting you into buying their spamguard that had always been there. Yahoo's spamguard works very well and all I get is 4 or 5 a day for the most part. I learned not to use their double access and incorporate my old Westelcom account into my yahoo mail. I thought it would filter it and it didn't . A few hours later and sore fingers I deleted all 38,000 viagra and pornospams that got dumped in there. At 50 delets per pop it went on forever. From now on I use yahoo for all my email. You know I did learn a lot about viagra though. In the course of a day I won the lottery multiple times, got greetings from "hot babes", and had numerous generous business offers from nice gentlemen in Nigeria. I also learned that there are about a gazillion ways to spell Viagra , casino and mortgage. Aside from the little mistake I made importing that account yahoo has been living up to standards for me for over 12 years so why change now.

 

[Gooserider]

I would say it's a tossup between !Hotmail and A($$#*!3$)O(n)L(ine) as to which is worse as an apparent spam source, though AOL has gotten somewhat better over the last couple years - would never do business with AOL in any case, as their client requires an insecure computer to run on, but... I would filter each, except that I have people on each that I still have to communicate with. However I would say that a Hotmail or AOL address is definitely a negative reference in my books...

Gmail and the other Google services I've heard are pretty decent, and Google is a bit more reputable than some of the others - note that in the recent efforts by the Bush League to spy on US Citizens, Google is one of the few entities that actually asked for a warrant instead of just handing everything they had over...

OTOH, I am NOT comfortable with having MY data being stored on somebody elses computer, under their control, rather than on my hard drive, and under my control... As such I wouldn't want to use such services, but more as a matter of principle than not trusting Google.

Gooserider