I have my "junk address", which is the one I use on web forums and anytime I order anything, or am required to give an email address (I also have my "real" one, that I give out to friends and people I regularly correspond with). The junk mail address used to be my hotmail address, but Microsoft decided that they weren't going to allow forwarding of Hotmail to Outlook Express anymore, so I dumped both Hotmail and OE. For years I had been getting one to two hundred junk mail messages a day to my hotmail account - filtering cut it to about 50 that I would see and have to delete, but that's still a pain in the rear!

I started using my gmail address as my general junk address and Thunderbird as my mailer, and I have had maybe five spam messages in the past few months!! I haven't even set up any filters yet! I am still using my Hotmail address for one time only things that I really don't care about, so a lot of junk is still being directed there. But my gmail address has been out there, in heavy use, for months and I would think it would have attracted its share of spammers. It seems to have really good junk mail filtering built in. And those few that have gotten through have been caught by Thunderbird's built in junk filter.

I think the only disadvantage with gmail is that I don't believe Outlook or Outlook Express will allow forwarding from it (Microsoft really hates Google). I haven't come across any disadvantages with Thunderbird - I'm not familiar with Outlook, only Outlook Express, but Thunderbird is 1000 times better than OE.

I wasn't really trying to solve the spam problem when I switched - I had been fed up with OE for a long time and the bit with Hotmail not forwarding anymore pushed me over the edge. But changing to my current setup solved the spam problem as well, so I'm twice as happy :-)

BP

Similar to what Bonnie used to do Bonnie..I use hotmail and yahoo as my e-mail address on forums and such...and I give my personal address to my friends and business associates..banks..etc.
A suggestion maight be to speak to your internet provider and explain the problem...and ask for a new address...and only give it out to people you want to have it.
Also..insist that any e-mails that are forwarded to you and by you..have all the addresses removed before they are sent on.
I have seen e-mails with dozens of names and addresses forwarded and this is how some of those spammers get your address.
Good luck.

Thanks for your suggestions. I will probably try them in the next week or so. I also use yahoo as an email address on forums but for whatever reason, these people keep sending me junk mail. And at one point, I was receiving loads of viruses and trojan horses too. I didn't really want to change my email address but this is ridiculous and I guess I'm left with no choice.

I had a yahoo address several years ago, and I found it was just as bad as Hotmail for generating spam. As far as mailers go, Thunderbird is way better than Outlook Express for preventing viruses as well - it's probably better than Outlook too, but I couldn't say for sure.

Changing your main email addresses is a big pain, especially if you've been using the same one for years! That's why I kept putting it off, but I'm really glad I finally did it -
it's so nice not to have to deal with all that junk!

If you want a gmail address to try, let me know (just email me ). It's still only available by "invitation" - you can't just sign up. However I have some 50 invitations, so it's no problem if you want one!

BP

Thanks for the offer Bonnie. I think I'm just going to change my email address completely. The yahoo email account is not a problem because I don't receive those messages through Outlook. But I will try Thunderbird.

My dh uses the google toolbar. It blocks most of the pop ups that you get on webpages. Apparently when you just click the close button on a lot of popups, that will send thme your address as well. It is always best to close it from the bottom of your screen instead of the window. Other than that I jsut give my hotmail address for junk mail or while visiting websites, and whenever I get junk mail I add it to the junk folder and I find that filters out a lot of it. I have never had upwords of 200 though....