Useful tools you may have overlooked if you run your own website and have access to CPanel.
I have been receiving far too much spam email and am now fighting back more and more. The amount of time spent on this nonsense is ridiculous. I have always said that a smartphone is ‘electronic opium.’ If so, then spam is the very, very bad heroin.
BoxTrapper
BoxTrapper is a spam blocking tool that that filters spam through a challenge-response verification. Thus, when someone sends you an email for the very first time, the tool will automatically send a verification email.
The sender will have to complete the verification process before his/her email can get into your inbox. Once the verification process is completed, the sender will be white listed. This means he/she won’t have to go through the verification process again.
Email addresses to which you send email are automatically white listed, even if you disable automatic whitelisting.
SpamAssassin
Another powerful utility that you can use to prevent spam email from reaching your inbox is SpamAssassin. This email utility screens incoming mail and tests them for spam characteristics.
SpamAssassin utilizes network tests coupled with Bayesian spam filtering to screen incoming email. This results in a score that SpamAssassin uses in determining whether it should discard a message.
To enable this function, simply log into cPanel then navigate the Mail section. Click on the SpamAssassin icon and click the Enable SpamAssassin in the gray box. You will then receive a confirmation message on the following page that SpamAssassin has been activated.
As mentioned earlier, SpamAssassin examines every incoming email message and uses a test to determine its spam characteristics. The tool considers messages with a score of 5 as spam by default. However, you can also adjust this spam score limit.