Web User - UK (2019-10-16)

Fine-tune Gmail’s defences by reporting

dodgy senders and tightening filters

Trocker quickly blocked 11 spam trackers

and three suspicio us domains for us

Outlooklets you beef up its filters by

reporting spam and phishing emails

Blitz promotional spam by deleting all

past andfuture emails from a sender

48 16 - 29 October 2019

Train your built-in

spamfilters

Gmail, Outlook.comandothermajor

email servicesdetectspam

automatically,thenfunnelit intoa

Spamfolderthat’s emptied every

30 daysorso. But becausespamis

constantlyevolving, you needtotrain

the algorithmsbyreporting dodgy

messagesthatescapethe filters.

InGmail, clickthe exclamation mark

atthe top of the dodgymessage and

‘Report spam’ or‘Report spam&

unsubscribe’. If you suspect it’s a scam

that’s out tostealyourpersonal data,

openits three-dotmenu and click

‘Report phishing’ toaddthe senderto

Gmail’s databases.You can alsoblock

the senderfromthismenu.

InOutlook.com, clickSpamatthe top

of the email then Spam, Phishingor

Block inthe drop-down menu, thenOK.

Mozilla’s Thunderbird (thunderbird

.net) goesone betterbyletting you

mark junkfromthe subjectline.

Blocknewsletter spam

and its trackers

Spam-blocking algorithmsaren’t

designedtostop promotional bumpf,

soyou’ll needtocreateyourown filters

toblock them. InGmail, openthe

message’s three-dotmenu andclick

‘Filter messageslikethis’, then‘Create

filter’, ‘Delete it’ and‘Alsoapply filterto

matchingconversations’. Finally,click

‘Create filter’ tobanishthe lot.

InOutlook.com, goto‘J unk email’

settings (bit.ly/junk4 86 ) and add any

offending promotouts to‘Blocked

senders and domains’, thenscroll down

andtick‘Only trustemail fromSafe

senders’ and‘Blockattachmentsfrom

anyonenot inSafesenders’.

Mailing-list spamisoften laced with

trackers, usuallyembeddedin images,

soit’s worth blocking these sneakyspies

aswell. The open-sourcetoolTrocker

(trockerapp.github.io) automatically

detects andblockstracking images,

without blocking otherphotos.It now

has anextension for Firefox aswell as

Spam isn’t dead, it’s justevolved to

invade more places than ever. Jane Hoskyn

reveals new ways to beat today’s toughest

junk – in your inbox and beyond

Chrome, and supportsall webmail

services. Click its toolbar button, then

Advancedtosee howmany spam-

producing stalkers it’s blocked.

The freeversion ofnewGmail add-on

Gmelius (gmelius.com) includes tracker

detection andblocking,alongwith

newsletterunsubscribetools.Chrome

extension Email PrivacyProtector (bit

.ly/emailpriv4 86 ) adds aneye iconto

any Gmail message that’s tracking you,

andofferstoblock the sender.

Expunge oldmailing-list

spam

Blitzingnewsletters istedious if you’re

onhundredsofmailinglists,soCleanfox

(cleanfox.io) letsyou delete the whole

lot inone go. It requiresseveral security

steps,including arandomsecure

password tolinkyourwebmail address,

andthentakes afewhourstoround up

all the mailinglistspaminyourarchive.

You don’t have tostopworkwhile the

listisbeing populated andCleanfox will

pickupwhere it leftoff if you needto

Block spam

messages and

calls forever

BLOCK SPAM EMAILS FOREVER